Tully: Pete Buttigieg for DNC chair — the smart choice

By many standard political measures, Pete Buttigieg should be little more than an afterthought in the race to chair the Democratic National Committee. The fact that he is not, and that he has actually emerged as the most intriguing choice in the field, speaks volumes about the caliber of his candidacy, his ideas, his record and his message.

Late Wednesday evening, little more than three months after the-Republican dominated 2016 elections inspired a new round of Democratic soul searching, CNN aired a 90-minute debate among the eight candidates to lead the DNC. The debate made one thing even more obvious: The Democratic Party would be foolish to pass on the opportunity to be led by Buttigieg (BOOT-edge-edge), the trailblazing and effective 35-year-old mayor of South Bend.

“We need a leader who will bring out the best in us,” Buttigieg said early in the debate. “That’s what leadership is all about.”

The line summed up both the way Buttigieg has led South Bend and his argument that Democrats need to rebuild the party’s state-by-state infrastructure and its way of delivering its message.

“Every outrage has to be met with a response,” he said, referring to the president. “But it’s also not all about Donald Trump. We’ve got to get back to talking to people and about people in terms of their everyday lives. ... Yes, we’ve got to take the fight to (Trump) but we can’t let him dominate our imagination.”

In a field crowded with D.C. insiders and state party political operatives, Buttigieg has offered the most appealing progressive message — one that understands the party’s agenda and policies have not resonated with millions of Americans who would benefit from them. The party must do a better job of proving that it can stand up for a diverse group of Americans, he said, from blue-collar workers to immigrant parents to transgender teenagers. And it can no longer be seen as the party whose support for one group of Americans means it is ignoring others.

“We’re all in this together,” he said. “That’s got to be our message.”

Two of the most appealing aspects of Buttigieg’s resume have also left him a longshot in the race: He serves as a mayor, a local political job that demands pragmatism, consensus-building and results. And he is based not in Washington, D.C., like front-runners Keith Ellison and Tom Perez, but here in the Midwest, in a blue-collar city that is home to economic struggles, inspiring signs of growth and a world-famous university. It is in many ways a microcosm of the American story.

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It says something about the Democrats’ problems, and the problems of politics in general, that being a mayor from the Midwest does not carry the weight of being a congressman (like Ellison) or a former Labor Department secretary (like Perez). But it doesn’t. And, so, political observers have labeled Buttigieg a dark-horse candidate, though one who has repeatedly attracted notice at candidate forums. It was easy to see why at Wednesday’s debate.

As others squabbled over the intraparty battles of 2016, Buttigieg talked about the future and the need to not let factional disputes divide the party. “I didn’t love living through the 2016 primary the first time,” he said. “I don’t know why we as a party would want to live through it a second time. We have to look forward, not back.”

He told Democrats that they often act, and voting patterns back this up, as if the White House “is the only thing that matters.” That’s cost the party in state legislatures, Congress, and in many local and midterm elections. The next chair must return to a 50-state strategy that does not shrug off races even in GOP territory. “Don’t get mad,” he said. “Get on your school board.”

Time and again, Buttigieg’s experience as mayor allowed him to talk about issues from the perspective of how federal policies affect average Americans. He rightly pointed out that Democratic rhetoric on guns often turns off voters who would be open to common-sense restrictions.

On immigration, Buttigieg talked about the families he has met and the South Bend natives who have rallied to help them during these tense and scary times.

On the White House’s move this week to roll back protections for transgender students, Buttigieg made clear what an effective party messenger he would be.

“What kind of person does that?” he said, referring to the president. “What kind of bully looks for the most vulnerable people he can find to attack?”

Standing near front-runners who are two decades his senior, Buttigieg was asked how the party could win over more millennials. “One thing you could do to better engage millennials,” he said, “is to put a 35-year-old in as chair of the DNC.”

Buttigieg has received some national attention because of his personal story: He is a young, openly gay mayor in a red state who served in Afghanistan after attending Harvard. He is a progressive, but with a Midwestern tinge. At one point Wednesday, he talked about hunting with his boyfriend’s father on Thanksgiving and said, “How’s that for a 2017 sentence?”

Much of the chatter before the debate focused on the race between front-runners Ellison and Perez. But it was Buttigieg who offered the clearest and most forward-looking message for a party that needs someone like him — someone who has spent six years in an office far from D.C., an office where success is defined by whether its occupant brings people together and produces results.

Thank you for reading. Please follow me on Twitter: @matthewltully.