Pete Buttigieg's Essay Contest - WSJ op-ed

Twenty years ago, a high school senior from South Bend, Ind., won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest. Peter Buttigieg’s 2000 treatise for the JFK Library was a paean to—ironically as it would turn out—Bernie Sanders.

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As I listened to Mr. Buttigieg deliver campaign talks to audiences across southern New Hampshire last week, I was constantly reminded of Mr. Obama. Like the 44th president, Mr. Buttigieg often speaks of the presidency as if its constitutional role were to create harmony in the populace and to heal wounds inflicted by hate and division. “The purpose of the presidency is not to glorify the president,” he told an audience in Nashua. “It’s to unify and empower the American people.” In Manchester, he said the U.S. needs a president “who will leave us more unified than before—that will galvanize and not polarize the American majority.”

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Last May Mr. Buttigieg took part in a town hall hosted by Fox News in the western New Hampshire town of Claremont. Barack Obama outpolled Mitt Romney there by more than 20 points in 2012, but in 2016 Claremont plumped for Mr. Trump. The town has seen a three-decade exodus of industry and responded favorably to Mr. Trump’s promises of industrial revitalization. Progressives sharply criticized Mr. Buttigieg for taking part in a Fox News event, but it was a savvy move from a candidate who understands he has to win back areas that abandoned the Democrats in 2016.

He revisited the town on his latest tour through New Hampshire and spoke to a crowd of perhaps 1,100 in a packed high-school gymnasium. He began his remarks by recalling the flak he took for the Fox town hall. “The reality is,” he said, that “our message and our values and our policies will do right by individual Americans and their families—no matter what cable news TV station they watch.”

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Mr. Buttigieg does have one clear advantage. To a greater extent than perhaps any other Democratic candidate, he is everything Donald Trump is not: polished, genial, well-read, articulate. When I asked voters at his campaign events why they were interested in Mr. Buttigieg, almost every one said something about the candidate’s pleasing deportment. “He’s the adult in the room,” a man in Wolfeboro told me. “I like the way he carries himself,” said the woman standing next to me in Manchester, whose T-shirt bore a pronunciation guide: “BOOT EDGE EDGE.” A woman in Nashua, by appearances a college student, said that when Mr. Buttigieg opens his mouth, “you don’t have to worry.” Patricia Barry, principal of Stevens High School in Claremont, introduced Mr. Buttigieg by praising his measured bearing. “I want to know that when I turn on my TV,” she said, “I can be proud of my president.”


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https://www.wsj.com/articles/pete-buttigiegs-essay-contest-11578697616 (paid subscription)