Could wildcard millennial Pete Buttigieg become America’s first gay President?
The son of a Maltese immigrant to America, openly gay and an Afghanistan war veteran Pete Buttigieg (pronounced: “boot-edge-edge”) is someone whose name is likely unfamiliar.
This 37-year-old contemporary of Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard was also a Rhodes scholar at Pembroke College, Oxford and elected the city mayor of South Bend, Indiana at the age of just 29. This “centrist” politician speaks Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Farsi and French, plays the guitar and piano and raised a staggering $600,000 in just 24 hours from 22,000 donors after appearing at a CNN town hall in March this year.
Named “Mayor the Year for 2013” by GovFresh.com and described by The Washington Post as “the most interesting mayor you’ve never heard of” in 2014, Buttigieg transformed South Bend by both repairing and demolishing 1,000 blighted properties across the cities in 1,000 days. He has been credited with improving urban vibrancy, investing $50 million to restore the city’s neglected parks and describes himself as “a proponent of democratically influenced capitalism.”
Married to a junior high school teacher, Chasten Glezman, Buttigieg was a consultant at McKinsey & Company from 2007 to 2010. Asked in 2016 how he’d combat Trump, he answered: “I grew up in Indiana and I’m gay. I’m comfortable dealing with bullies.”
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If I were a betting person, I wouldn’t put money on him. From what I’ve seen of him, he’s a very intelligent man – but a bit too obscure for people to vote for over the more recognisable candidates in the Democratic race.
The other issue with him is a lack of specific policies. I’ve checked his website – and it doesn’t really say anything. Others (including on the left) reckon that this may be deliberate – because he’s trying to attract big-money donors. And then, like every other US politician he will be beholden to what they want him to do,