LAS VEGAS, — Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg described Saturday his public coming out as a gay man in 2015 and how the exclusion he experienced made him conscious of what it means to belong and the need to overcome divisions.
The 37-year-old described “a crisis of belonging in this country” experienced by LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, people of color, people with disabilities, workers and more and the need for “hopeful and audacious voices” to unite people in a changing time.
“What every gay person has in common with every excluded person of any kind is knowing what it’s like to see a wall between you and the rest of the world and wonder what it’s like on the other side,” Buttigieg said as he gave the keynote address Saturday night in Las Vegas at a gala for the Human Rights Campaign.
Brilliant political science analysis from the “Rhodes scholar”. Credentials? Other than maybe the gay thing any number of swamp dwellers have his credentials
“Mayor Pete” Buttigeig capitalizes on his ‘progressive appeal’; Runs as kind of a “Your Gay Next Door”, and wants you to know ‘the trouble he’s seen’.
The “good news” for aspiring Democratic presidential candidates? While ‘Mayor Pete’ has filled the “openly gay candidate” gap there’s still an opening for an attractive ‘Trans’!
Sorry Cory…Already had a black President, and Kamala has the looks over you.
“Pete” Tells LGBTQ crowd he “knows”exclusion”; Yet it’s hard to find what he’s been excluded from.
It is arguable that, as he puts it, he ‘knows’ what it’s like to “feel exclusion”, as every other gay person and to “wonder” what it’s like “on the other side”.
“Pete” tells his listeners that he didn’t “come out” until he was age 33! Apparently, despite his announcement that he is gay, and thus, experienced “a crisis of belonging in this country”, it would seem a mystery that he need wonder about the “other side” since he “lived it” for his first 33 years! He had already been elected mayor, received a commission in the Naval Reserve, and been accepted as a Rhodes Scholar!
And, having ‘come out’ hasn’t seemed to harm his political career, or his ‘attractiveness’ to the media.
But, I guess it makes a ‘good story’ and one with great appeal to all those “excluded” folks attending the LGBTQ “Human Rights Campaign” gala in Las Vegas Saturday. Expect to hear more about Pete’s sad ‘exclusion’ in the coming months.
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Our Commentary is not a “gay bashing”, nor do we wish to “exclude” on such a basis (The right, too, has some very able, accomplished people of that orientation who decline to seek recognition and professional accomplishment on a Buttigieg “exclusion” platform; (For example, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell; Fox News contributor, Tammy Bruce, even Fox’s liberal “Shep’ Smith makes no prominent play on “exclusion” ).
It is “Mayor Pete’s” radical left agenda on which we cast our ‘never ever vote’…and the Rhodes scholar’s off-putting self-righteous opportunism.
In a field crowded with equally self righteous, over-indoctrinated, under-educated hyper-progressive candidates who have resumes somewhat more impressive than chief executive of a relatively small, very liberal city, it’s hard to imagine “Pete” getting much attention without exploiting the heretofore unchecked ‘box’ in the far-left’s lineup… playing the “gay card”.
(I have a liberal acquaintance who was just bustin’ with pride over his own goodness and non-racist impulses with his votes for Obama. I am sure that he can’t wait to tell everyone he knows that he’s all in for “Mayor Pete” because of his ‘courage’ in coming out and marrying the ‘love of his life’ despite the ‘threat’ to his political prospects that those “homophobic GOP voters” represent. This liberal IS a good person…and he wants all to know it!)
We acknowledge that Buttigieg has impressive education and military credentials and has some record of accomplishment for the city of South Bend as its mayor. He is articulate, energetic, and seems to have a keen mind. He is described as an “active musician” and has performed with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra. None of which either qualifies or disqualifies him from the Oval Office.
Having worked on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, however, does disqualify him as far as I’m concerned (what was that about a “keen mind”?). His campaign is an ‘all-in’ position on virtually every part of the far left’s social, economic, and foreign policy agenda. (Don’t say you weren’t warned!) DLH
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Some additional notes of interest about “Mayor Pete:
– My favorite “Pete” quote: “What the Green New Deal gets right, is it recognizes that there’s also an economic opportunity. Retrofitting buildings means a huge amount of jobs for the building trades in this country” … (Then why not ‘retrofit’ ALL buildings in America?!)
Wikipedia:
– South Bend, IN has not elected a Republican mayor in decades.
– Elected at the age of 29, Buttigieg has been profiled by the New York Times and was called “the most interesting mayor you’ve never heard of” by the Washington Post. An officer in U.S. Navy Reserve from 2009-17, Buttigieg took a leave of absence to serve in Afghanistan during a seven-month deployment in 2014, earning the Joint Service Commendation Medal for his counterterrorism work.
– An active musician, Buttigieg plays piano and guitar, and has performed with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra. He lives in the same neighborhood where he grew up and is restoring a formerly vacant home there.
– Buttigieg…was born in South Bend. Prior to winning election in 2011, he was an intern for Jill Long Thompson’s 2002 congressional campaign and worked on her 2008 gubernatorial campaign. He also worked on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. As he notes on his Twitter page, the correct way to pronounce his last name is “BOOT-edge-edge.”
[55] He won the Democratic primary with 78% of the vote, defeating Henry Davis Jr., the city councilman from the Second District.[56] In November 2015, he was elected to his second term as mayor of South Bend with over 80% of the vote, defeating Republican Kelly Jones. –Wikipedia[57]
– In 2015, during the controversy over Indiana Senate Bill 101—the original version of which was widely criticized for allowing discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people—Buttigieg emerged as a leading opponent of the legislation, and shortly thereafter came out as gay to express his solidarity. –Wikipedia[58][59]
