At 37 and without experience: the mayor who wants to be the first gay president of the United States

Until about 10 months ago no one knew his name, but today Pete Buttigej is one of the Democratic Party's leading candidates. His views on economics, security and even drugs differ from the older candidates, and although he is less likely to win, he can surprise

At 37 and without experience: the mayor who wants to be the first gay president of the United States

On February 3, the Democratic Party's first primaries will be held for the presidential election. The primaries in Iowa, and a few days later in New Hampshire, are the ones to announce our official entry for election year. At least according to some surveys published last week by local media outlets, Pete Buttigej's chances of winning first place in these two countries are the highest, although overall overall he is still in fourth place - but that is a feat.

In April 2019, announcing his run for the Democratic primaries, the 37-year-old Buttagej was considered a fairly anonymous candidate, with no one giving him a real chance. A Morning Consult poll in March, after seriously considering tackling and being interviewed by many national media outlets, revealed that 62 percent of respondents had not even heard of his name.

This week, as quarterly, he reported his fundraising data, which showed that in the last quarter he raised about $ 24.7 million from 733,000 donors, placing him second after Bernie Sanders, who raised 34.5 million, and more than Joe Biden, who raised 22.7 million.

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Will the other senior and veteran candidates outnumber him? Pete Bottige (Photo: Reuters)

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttagej, running for primaries to elect Democratic presidential candidate 2020 (Photo: Reuters)

The high public profile and high profile of Democratic candidates is particularly surprising, because unlike the other three candidates in the first quartet: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, ButtigeJ has no significant experience in national politics. Until this week, when his term ended on Jan. 1, he served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a small town with just over 100,000 residents. To date, the mayor has never been directly elected as mayor in the United States. His supporters, on the other hand, mention that Donald Trump was elected straight from the business world and so the precedents we knew until 2016 are not necessarily more valid.

Exits Army and Harvard graduate

Butige is also the first declared gay to run in the Democratic presidential primaries. In 2015, being mayor, he walked out of the closet in an article for a local newspaper in South Bend. "Publishing something so personal over the pages of the newspaper is not something that comes easily to me. We in the Midwest are private individuals by nature, and I'm not used to seeing it as if it's anyone's business." The article was published just days before the United States Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage, adding that "at this moment, being open about it can also do well. We are approaching a world where it will be accepted as a norm. It is often still considered here To a party issue, but that doesn't have to be the case. " In 2018, he married his partner, Chestan Glazman, a school teacher.

If he manages to do what appears to be quite low at the moment and win the primaries over the other senior and veteran candidates, he will also be the youngest candidate to represent the Democratic Party since William Bryan, who took office in 1896 when he was 36 years old.

Until about ten months ago, they didn't even know his name. Boutique (Photo: Reuters)

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttagej, running for primaries to elect Democratic presidential candidate 2020 (Photo: Reuters)

Barzuma's seven-month service in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer. In 2014, when he was mayor, he embarked on a lengthy service period during which he was part of a unit whose role was to disrupt economic operations of terrorist units, an office work largely performed from a military base. However, part of the time, he also served as an operational driver. "It's not like I killed bin Laden. I don't want to exaggerate my part in military service," Bottige said in an interview with CNN. "But it was definitely something dangerous, and people I knew were unfortunately attacked."

Joined the Army in 2008, after graduating from Harvard. He served in the reserve from 2009 to 2014, and was finally released from service in 2017. He said in the same interview that he decided to join the military while working on Barack Obama's election campaign, so during the campaign trips he realized that there were localities where all the young people go to the military "compared to places where they serve almost nothing."

Trying to position himself among the old Democratic candidates

What is Buttagej's chance of translating the expected success in the early states into the primaries, where he is still in fourth place, to succeed in the strongholds of leading candidates? "He clearly prefers the first states where primaries will be held - Iowa and New Hampshire, as he is among the leaders in these two states," he told Walla! NEWS Jeffrey Parrott, who has covered Boutidge's tenure as mayor of the South Bend Tribune, and is currently reviewing his presidential race. "In South Carolina, it's going to be harder for him because Joe Biden has widespread black community support there. He should hope that success in the first two states will improve his chances on Big Tuesday." This day is Tuesday in early March, so voting is held in 14 countries at the same time.

Butige is trying to attract progressive and younger voters at the same time from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and more moderate and older voters than Joe Biden. He tries to position himself right in the middle: a moderate, but not a socialist, 40 years younger than the top three candidates, but due to the leadership after eight years as mayor. He also presents a surprising stance on drugs. Butige said in a local newspaper interview in Iowa last week, saying that incarceration is not a drug-holding solution, no matter what kind of drug. "In trying to deal with a public health problem, we created a problem for the justice system. That doesn't mean legalizing everything. I am aware of the damage that drugs can cause. But the idea that addiction can be a criminal offense has not proven itself."

Will you lose voting to Bottige? Elizabeth Warren (Photo: AP)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Democratic Conflict on June 26, 2019 (Photo: AP)

His argument, when asked about his inexperience, is that many times projects that succeed at the local level can succeed at the national level. Jake Tosca, a member of the South Bend City Council of Indiana and a Republican Party member, told Walla! NEWS that Buttagej is trying to get himself in the middle, and that as an Indiana mayor, he has traditionally been someone trying to be both financially moderate and welfare-related issues like health insurance, in contrast to the more socialist approach of the left wing voters in the Democratic Party.

"I saw his ideology shift slightly to the left during the campaign," he added. "I think it has something to do with the fact that the mayor has issues on the national agenda that he shouldn't have addressed at all. As a mayor, he was expected to take care of curbs, roads and the budget. He didn't need issues like abortion, foreign relations and health insurance. It is as if he is now more inclined to the left, but it is unclear to me if he himself has moved to the left or we have just never heard his opinion on these issues because it was not required of him. "

Tosca said one of Bootage's virtues is his ability to work with political rivals during a time when American society is divided. "I attended the farewell ceremony this week at the municipality," he said. "Whenever I had conversations with him that we did not agree with, he spoke to me respectfully, which is something he is very good at. Although we are from a different political background and I am a Republican, I never felt that he treated me as someone from another party or his enemy. Disagree, we both want the good of the city. "

Won low support rates among minorities

However, his main problem was and still is the low rates of support he receives among minorities, especially blacks and Hispanics. A survey by the Quinnipiac Institute last November indicated that support for the black population is less than one percent.

Much of that has to do with his conduct with police in South Bend. Upon taking office, he fired the city's first black police chief. In June 2019, when a white police officer shot a black man in South Bend, tensions were rising in the city, and the mayor - who did not attend the rally in memory of the victim - was again charged with insensitivity. In an attempt to cope with his criticism for failing to connect with black voters, he published a program to combat racism and "empowering blacks in America." But, embarrassingly, a picture of a mother and her son accompanying the plan turned out to be a photograph from Kenya purchased from a stock photo.

The Hispanic community is also in much worse shape and stands at about five percent of support. A Fox News poll in the state of Nevada, where a significant Hispanic population lives, indicated that he was receiving a single percentage of support in the state. Without minority support, Buttigej will find it very difficult to gain momentum after the first two states vote.

Has a lot of supporters in the black community, which Buttigej does not have. Joe Biden (Photo: Daniel Card / Getty Images)

Democratic presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden speaking at a community event (Photo: Daniel Card / Getty Images, GettyImages)

"It's not that minorities don't like him, he just can't connect with them," Jake Tosca explained. "He is a white man who attended university from the Ivy League, and did not experience much of the hardship these people experienced. His beginning at the municipality was difficult from day one with the dismissal of the police chief, and it was something that hung over his head throughout his eight years in office. We had a tough and violent summer in the city, Most violent in history, and part of it has to do with his leadership. " Another member of the city council said: "The way he responded to police shootings only caused more damage and the situation in the city was pretty tense. He angered the cops on the one hand by throwing them under the bus wheels and more or less calling everyone racist, and on the other he upset Black Lives Matters "".

Another event the candidate would probably like to forget is on the eve of a fundraising event last month at the Napa Valley, California. The event was held in a wine cave cave and served $ 900 bottles of wine. This drew criticism from the party's progressive wing, which accused him of holding a "closed billionaire event." When Elizabeth Warren stung him about it during the last Democratic conflict, he remained indebted and replied: "I'm the only one on this stage who is not a millionaire or a billionaire. That's the problem with purity tests you can't pass yourself."

His views on Israel

Regarding Israel, his positions are between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. While he reiterated his commitment to Israeli security on numerous occasions, he made it clear that "this does not mean that I have to agree with every Israeli government position." He also hinted that he would put pressure on the government regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In May, Washington hosted a closed conversation with 40 Jewish leaders in the office of a strategic consulting firm called "Bluelight Strategies," affiliated with the Democratic Party. "I don't believe the right approach is to support all positions of the current government," he said at the time. "The right approach when you have a friend who you think is taking harmful steps is to wrap your arm with that friend and lead him to another place. That's part of how our alliance works."

Young Progressive candidate Bernie Sanders (Photo: AP)

Sen. Bernie Sanders at the Fox Network hearing in Pennsylvania, April 15, 2019 (Photo: AP)

Butige also criticized the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Israeli sovereignty at the Golan Heights, saying they were "resolutions to intervene in Israeli politics through American policy." In October, when he appeared at the annual left-wing lobbying conference on J Street, he made clear his intention to "lead the friend elsewhere," explaining that the United States should make sure "US taxpayers' money is not used to support moves like annexation ". However, unlike Sanders, he did not directly threaten that if elected he would cut military aid to Israel.

"It's inconceivable that an Indiana mayor is one of the top candidates while New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, who is also running in the primaries this year, has barely left any mark," he told Walla! NEWS Aaron Kayak, co-owner of "Bluelight Strategies", who organized the meeting at Boutage in May.

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More experienced and more veteran. Warren, Biden and Sanders (Photo: Reuters)

Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden in Democratic Conflict, October 15, 2019 (Photo: Reuters)

"What impresses me with his candidacy is his extensive knowledge. It is not just about knowledge in a variety of subjects, but the fact that he knows every issue in depth. He can naturally skip between discussing health insurance and the situation in the Middle East to the housing problem," Kayak added. "He is the only candidate among the top quartet who did not appear in the polls a year ago. In fact, until he came to visit our offices I could hardly pronounce his name."

"We are at odd times in American politics. In 2015, I would never have guessed that Trump would be president. I would never have imagined that this was what the American public was looking for," Councilman Jake Tosca concluded. "And so the fact that he has only served as mayor does not disqualify him from running for president. We see that he is raising money on a large scale and if he is able to register achievements in the first states and overcome the alienation his minorities have towards him, he can be one of the last candidates approaching the finish line. He won't be the candidate, he's only 37, and he's not going anywhere. "