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Why I’m Caucusing for Pete Buttigieg

Over the last year, we’ve been able to learn about a wonderful slate of presidential candidates. I would be happy to support almost any of them, and in November, regardless of who gets the nomination, I will cast my ballot for a Democrat. But now, at start of this race for the nomination, I have thrown my support behind Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Buttigieg robust ground game in the early voting states demonstrates to me an ability to run a winning campaign against the incumbent president. He is an agile and effective debater whose quick wit and intelligence gives me confidence in his ability to handle the day to day emergencies that come before a president. His calm demeanor and clear desire to learn from new people and past mistakes predict an administration able to rebuild the confidence of the American people in their government.

Buttigieg served America in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer. The current administration has relentlessly and continuously worked to undermine our intelligence community and military; we need a commander in chief that has respect for the intelligence community and the military for having been there.

I like how his husband Chasten, a high school drama teacher, is committed to supporting arts programs in the school and will shine a spotlight on how arts programs enrich the lives of children.

I like his in-depth plans to unleash the potential of rural communities; to create policies of fairness and inclusion for people with disabilities; to address systemic and historic racial discrimination with his Douglass Plan to provide comprehensive investment in Black America.

He believes in science and the necessity of decisive action to combat climate change; he’s a man of faith.

Perhaps the most important reason I’m supporting Pete Buttigieg is that he gives me hope. From the start of his campaign, his message has been one of reconciliation and bringing America together. His informed pragmatism gives me hope that a stable, effective, and truth-based government is again possible. Like so many other people I talk to, the last three years of corruption in the White House has left me fatigued and disheartened. I long for a time when I can tune out the news for a day or two or ten and not worry that my country has descended into World War III.

Pete Buttigieg has given me hope that sanity and stability are again possible. A man of a new generation, he has the intelligence, energy, and good sense to fight corruption, to rebuild the infrastructure of government, to bring a public health care option to Americans, to halt the damage Moscow Mitch’s Senate has done to the judicial branch, to reign in the cruel and lawless actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to take the wrong-doers in the current administration to task, to return compassion and empathy to the presidency.

I’m with Pete because I see a better future in him—a better America and a better world.

Brian Bruening, Elkader