Who Deserves Your Vote? Really Deserves?

Have you ever considered there is a remarkable person vying for your vote?

This 37-year-old man won a first prize in the JFK Profiles in Courage essay contest awarded by the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

He was …

A valedictorian of his high school class,

A graduate of Harvard University (Where he was president of the Harvard Institute of Politics Student Advisory and magna cum laude),

A winner of a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford, Pembroke College, where he served as an editor of the Oxford International Review and graduated with first-class honors in philosophy, politics and economics,

An intelligence officer (Lieutenant) in the U.S. Navy Reserve (2009 to 2017) who speaks fluent Arabic,

A veteran of Afghanistan in 2014.

He worked on the 2004 presidential campaign of Democratic Sen. John Kerry and later for the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co., before winning the mayor’s office of South Bend, Indiana at age 29 in 2011. He was reelected to that office in 2015. And, oh, by the way, he speaks eight languages: English, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, Dari and French.

This, to date, is the incredible resume of Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg is running for President of the United States as a Democratic candidate. He doesn't take donations from corporate political action committees, and he has pledged not to take money from the fossil fuel industry. Would you like to know more about this young man?

Buttigieg is a candidate who …

Supports reducing income inequality,

Supports moving to a single-payer healthcare system in the long run, but has proposed implementing a public option on the Obamacare marketplace first – he calls it "Medicare for all who want it,”

Supports the right to an abortion, but has not said whether or not be believes a ban on abortion after 20 weeks is constitutional,

Supports debt-free public college for students from lower-income families and tuition-free public college for middle-income students.

Supports the Federal Equality Act, which would extend nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ+ people,

Supports reforms that would end gerrymandering,

Supports withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan and opposes an "open-ended commitment" in Syria.

Buttigieg's platform includes the following:

Pro-environmental policies – he wants 3 million new clean energy jobs and U.S. to be carbon neutral by 2050,

Cooperation between the Democratic Party and organized labor,

Universal background checks for firearms purchases, and

Preserving the DACA program for children of illegal immigrants.

Buttigieg speaks openly and easily about his Christian faith. He is an Episcopalian who says …

“I think it’s unfortunate [the Democratic Party] has lost touch with a religious tradition that I think can help explain and relate our values. At least in my interpretation, it helps to root [in religion] a lot of what it is we do believe in, when it comes to protecting the sick and the stranger and the poor, as well as skepticism of the wealthy and the powerful and the established.”

Pete Buttigieg is an extraordinary candidate. Before his reelection as mayor, he publicly came out as gay. He has talked about the fact that he was uncomfortable with being gay early in his life and told an audience at an LGBTQ event (May 2019) that "if you had shown me exactly what it was that made me gay, I would have cut it out with a knife."

He added later: "Thank God there was no pill. Thank God there was no knife."

Will Buttigieg get the Democratic nomination? He is certainly qualified by so many standards. President Buttigieg could certainly lead with dignity and grace – two qualities missing in the Trump years. Consider what the president said about his competition while on the campaign trail …

“We got some real beauties. We got a choice between Sleepy Joe and Crazy Bernie. I’ll take any of them, let’s just pick somebody please and let’s start this thing,” Trump said.

“Pick somebody!” he said. “We have a young man, Butt-ig-ieg, boot-edge-edge, they say edge–edge.”

“He’s got a great chance doesn’t he?” Trump said.

“He’ll be great. He’ll be great. Representing us against President Xi of China,” said of Buttigieg, a Naval Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan.

“I want to be in that room, I want to watch that one,” Trump said failing to expound on what about Buttigieg, who speaks several languages, would be interesting to watch when dealing with world leaders.

I think we all know what Trump meant with his sarcastic, demeaning remarks. Antigay sentiment is still a powerful force, especially in the Republican party. Buttigieg, whether you agree with him or not, states his views with sober clarity.

“It's tough for me to know. I just am what I am, and, you know, there’s going to be a lot of that. That’s why I – I can’t even read the LGBT media anymore, because it’s all, ‘too gay, not gay enough, wrong kind of gay,'” Buttigieg stated. “All I know is that life became a lot easier when I just started allowing myself to be myself and I’ll let other people write up whether I’m ‘too this’ or ‘too that.'”

Reread Mayor Pete's resume and tell me honestly which leader – Trump or Buttigieg – you believe would excel at “dealing with world leaders” … and, for that matter, in dealing with presidential duties of any kind.

Buttigieg is speaking to the politically disenfranchised. “We’ve got to fix our democracy before it’s too late. Get that right (and) climate, immigration, taxes, and every other issue gets better.” It is a plea we should not ignore. By electing Trump, the nation has endured a narcissistic leader with mindless policies of division and emotional instability. It's time to switch to a pragmatic, intelligent president in tune with the times. I know Pete Buttigieg is qualified and ready to employ his skills to "Win The Era" with his message of generational change.