SOUTH BEND, US April 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Pete Buttigieg, the gay, liberal mayor of a small American city in the conservative bastion of Indiana, officially launched his presidential bid yesterday, joining a crowded field of Democrats vying for their party\u2019s nomination in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 37-year-old Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran is the two-term mayor of his hometown of South Bend \u2014 a left-leaning bubble in America\u2019s so-called \u201cRust Belt\u201d region, where the decline of industries such as steel and automobile manufacturing has hurt local economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Voters in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin helped hand Republican US President Donald Trump his victory in the 2016 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Buttigieg, who is credited with helping turn South Bend around, has couched himself as a can-do reformer who can speak to voters across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“My name is Pete Buttigieg. They call me ‘Mayor Pete.’ I’m a proud son of South Bend, Indiana, and I am running for president of the United States!” he told a crowd of supporters at a former assembly plant turned high-tech hub in South Bend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That’s why I am here, to tell a different story than ‘Make America Great Again'” he added, referring to Trump’s campaign slogan. “This time it’s not just about wing an election. It’s about winning an era.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The official launch is expected to give his surprisingly strong campaign an additional boost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So many people showed up for the event that a large crowd was left outside in the rain to watch on a giant screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He represents a new generation of Democratic leadership. We love his vision,” said Jenn Watts, 35, while her three-year-old daughter sat on her shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were in the cavernous event space in the former plant of defunct auto maker Studebaker — waiting more than two hours before Buttigieg was scheduled to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As a young mom with a young daughter, he represents what I want my daughter to see in leadership in this country,” Watts added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the three months since he declared an exploratory committee to test a presidential run, Buttigieg has gone from relative obscurity — forced repeatedly to explain how to pronounce his last name — to drawing large and enthusiastic crowds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has raised $7 million, more than most other candidates, and jumped to third place in the latest polls of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire — the earliest states to vote in next year’s primary elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The popular mayor who speaks eight languages and plays classical piano has been the focus of countless news stories and profiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fascination has been in no small part due to his background: he would be the youngest, first openly gay, first millennial and first mayor to become president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has had headline-grabbing moments, the most recent being his faith-based challenge of Vice President Mike Pence’s conservative views on same-sex marriage and LGBT rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Speaking only for myself, I can tell you that if being gay was a choice, it was a choice made far, far above my pay grade,” Buttigieg said in an April 7 speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand, that if you’ve got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a soundbite-ready moment — like several others he has enjoyed — that replayed throughout the week in American media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Buttigieg’s launch at Studebaker called to mind the plant’s closure in 1963 that was still reverberating in the city in 2011 when he was elected mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He set out to tear down decaying, abandoned homes and restore the blighted Studebaker complex to make it suitable for new high-tech companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an unlikely feat, the city has reversed decades of population decline and attracted new businesses and development, with the mayor’s popularity growing in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“His appeal, for many people in South Bend, is his ability to look forward and to focus on better days ahead,” South Bend-based political science professor Elizabeth Bennion of Indiana University told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Once people looked at his resume and heard him speak, many started talking about the fact that he was destined for national politics.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SOUTH BEND, US April 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Pete Buttigieg, the gay, liberal mayor of a small American city in the conservative bastion of Indiana, officially launched his presidential bid yesterday, joining a crowded field of Democrats vying for their party\u2019s nomination in 2020. The 37-year-old Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran is the two-term mayor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":20376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20375"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}