Buttigieg remains coy about WH aspirations as talk swirls of post-Biden future
While Minnesota congressman and presidential hopeful U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar made her long-awaited first visit here in April, a new focus in the race emerged on the Democratic Underground network. There, the most prominent player was former mayor of South Bend, Ind. Pete Buttigieg, whom some pundits were declaring the next face of the Democratic party.
Buttigieg, the son of German immigrants, is the first openly gay man on a major party’s national ticket. He joined the staff of Mayor Pete Buttigieg Jr. as an “executive board member” in May 2017, and served as his deputy mayor for international affairs under Mayor Pete, then served as his chief operating officer.
The mayor was a Democrat to the core and he made an explicit pledge to the party during his presidential run: While Buttigieg would keep his personal opinions on social issues and gay marriage out of the process and make clear that he believes in a diversity of opinion on economic and social issues, the party’s platform would be left to the voters.
“I am proud to say that Pete Buttigieg has never held a single fundraiser for me,” Buttigieg said of Klobuchar in a statement shortly after the candidate announced that he was running for president. “I would take him at his word when he said he was running for a campaign that would put him in the White House and not for a presidential campaign he would run.”
The mayor’s campaign manager, Mike Schmuhl, told the Des Moines Register that Buttigieg “is not here to try to advance his own agenda, but to advance the movement that he leads.”
Buttigieg, who’s served as mayor of South Bend, a city with a population of only 21,000, was the top fundraiser for the Democratic candidate during the 2018 campaign. He was also the number-two overall
