Pete Buttigieg sat down with The State. Here’s what he said
Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg visited The State newspaper for an interview last week.
The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, answered a series of questions, including what he would do in his first 100 days in the White House and how effective his campaign has been to reach African American voters, key in South Carolina Democratic contests.
Responses have been edited for length.
Q: Angela Rye was asking you whether it scares you when you hold rallies here in South Carolina, that it’s mostly white people that make up the rallies, and you said yes. Was wondering if you could elaborate on that a little.
A: “Well, look, it’s very important to us to connect with voters who represent the diversity of this state. But what we found is that if you just have an event and see who finds their way to you, it’s not necessarily as representative as when you go out and find voters where they are. And so, in particular as we’ve been engaging black voters, a lot of the best engagements have happened in a smaller setting. Like when we were in Moncks Corner last (Thursday) night. When we visited a black-owned winery in the area of Round O and talked about rural economic development and black enterprise. When we were in North Charleston talking about health equity with a group of people on the front lines who were clinicians and others ... but really having that conversation build in a different way than if you just say, “Here I come.’ And that’s going to be very important. Now, that’s only part of the story.
“I’m also talking to a lot of voters, especially black voters who are deeply pragmatic (and) want somebody who is going to win, recognizing the urgency of defeating Donald Trump, and so I’m also very mindful that part of how you establish credibility with voters here is to do well in the very first contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire. And there are, I think, a lot of voters who won’t really be unlocked for us until we’ve been able to have that show of strength as I believe we will.”
Q: But do you feel like given just the sheer number of black voters we have here compared to states like Iowa and New Hampshire ... do you feel like from the outset earlier you should of had a more aggressive campaign approach to South Carolina?
A: “Well, we’ve made a lot of investments, not just in my time but of resources throughout. We’re 50 organizers now, investing in I think over $2 million in getting the word out here, and growing that campaign. It’s going to be different for me than it is for somebody who has had sometimes literally decades to earn that sense of familiarity and trust, and, you know, even black candidates struggled to get out of single-digits with black voters. ... But I don’t think that that will prevent me from engaging and earning that black support. It just means we have to go about it differently.”
Q: Do you feel like you’re still having to introduce yourself to voters here in South Carolina?
A: “In some ways, yes. That’s happening in different ways across the country. Look, there’s some voters who have been following the blow-by-blow with this thing for a year. And there are others who are just busy, or took a look at the 20 of us and said, you know, ‘Call me back when you got it down to three.’ And that’s very understandable. And so we’re trying to make sure we’re connecting both with the die-hard folks who have followed every twist and turn of this race and the people who’ve made a very conscious decision to really start tuning in the last five or 10 days.”
Q: You have executive experience, but as a mayor. Why not run for governor? Why is it time for you to run for president?
A: “So, it’s not lost on me that there’s probably no other time in history when it would make sense for a mayor of a city, not that different in size from Columbia, to seek to do this. But that’s also part of the point. In other words, I’m running because I see the presidency and my party needing to do a better job of connecting with communities our size. And having that connection to reality that I think a mayor has uniquely, especially a mayor who’s not from one of America’s biggest cities. There is no force field of staff between me and the reality of the constituents I serve, or served. I’m still getting used to being a retired mayor. When you were a mayor, you eat what you cook. And, this is a moment where I think the kind of reality checks that you face as a mayor, on the ground facing some of the toughest problems in policy and the toughest problems that Americans deal with that are at stake in these choices, that‘s exactly the perspective we need to bring to Washington.”
“So I do think that executive experience is important. But it’s also just that sense of being on the ground and not needing a focus group to tell you what’s going on in the middle class, what’s going on on the ground in low-income communities, because I live in one. And I think that has also allowed me to have an approach, and even a vocabulary, that partly explains why I have been able to advance past governors and past senators to reach this stage of the process, because it certainly wasn’t based on anything you’d say I had going for me a year ago. We opened our committee a year ago yesterday (Thursday). Four people on staff, an office probably smaller than this room, no personal fortune. As of now, I remain, reportedly the least wealthy person running for president. No big mailing list of millions of people on it. No PAC of the kind that a senator would have been building for years. So the fact that we went from there to here in one year, I think shows that not only that we have the right message but that it’s the right time for somebody doing what I’m doing to do this. It’s not as though I entered the office of mayor at the beginning of the last decade thinking, you know, two good terms, right to the White House. But we are living in a moment that I think calls for something completely different.”
Q: Are you surprised that you’ve made it this far, past people who have had decades worth of experience?
“Well, we wouldn’t have gotten into this if we didn’t think we had a case to do it. But of course, you don’t really know until you step out and take that risk. And so of course it’s been encouraging to see the response.”
Q: How much do you think you could help down ticket candidates? Joe Biden said he thinks he’s the best to do that.
A: “I have a different perspective. Look, I come from, and by come from I lived to this day in the exact kind of industrial, Midwestern community where this president picked off so many Democratic voters. I can speak to the needs of voters in those kinds of communities. I can speak to rural issues. I can speak to service in a way that no other candidate can. And it’s very much on my mind to support candidates running in other seats, because as mayor I’ve seen how important that is. The important of state House, state Senate races, let alone Congress and the (U.S.) Senate. And if we want to make sure that we are propelling candidates to ... secure the House, our majority there, take the Senate, for someone like Jaime Harrison to succeed, it would be very important to have (someone at) the top of the ticket capable of building as many bridges as possible.”
“Remember, if we want to talk about what’s risky, remember that every single time in the last 50 years my party has taken the White House, without exception the following things have been true of our nominee: It’s been somebody who is new on the scene and had not run for president before. It’s been somebody who did not have an office in Washington, or if they did, they hadn’t had it for very long. It’s been somebody who focused on values that are shared. And it’s been somebody who opened the door to a new generation of leadership. Every time we’ve won, it’s been with a candidate who had those qualities. Every time we’ve tried otherwise, we’ve come up short.
“I think we need to look at what it really means to take a risk when it comes to the importance of winning, both winning the White House and having the kind of movement that can deliver successful outcomes up and down the ticket.”
Q: Do you think you’ll be campaigning for the Jaime Harrison’s, the Joe Cunningham’s of the world?
A: “Absolutely. And in fact I campaigned for Joe Cunningham last time. ... I know what these front line members are facing. And we’ve got to pay attention to them. And a lot of them are fresh, a lot of them are from my generation. And I will do everything in my power to support them because it’s so important to actually getting these things done.”
Q: On your HBCU proposal, ... how are you and other candidates not just pandering by proposing dumping all this money into HBCUs and what exactly, specifically, do you think is going to happen as a result of enacting a policy like what you’re recommending?
A: “So, I’d say the difference in the way I’m coming at it is recognizing how this is integrated with all the other issues we’re trying to pursue. This is not just checking a box that says, ‘HBCUs are good; therefore, let’s help them,’ although they are, and we should. This is about looking at how the other problems we face will become less intractable if we’re supporting what HBCUs can do. And what I mean by that is the under-representation of black professionals in so many fields where the cultural competency that they carry with them into the job is part of what would make a difference. Black maternal mortality gap, for example, often can be traced to a failure to take the descriptions of being in pain by black patients seriously — something that’s less likely to happen in a workplace or clinical environment with more black doctors, nurses and practitioners. We want to generate that future generation of black clinicians. HBCUs are one of the places we’ve got to invest in to make sure that happens.”
“When I talk about the funding that needs to go in, I’m not just talking about lobbing money over the fence, hoping something good will happen. I’m talking in particular about it being targeted in ways that will benefit those professional development pipelines. That’s a big part of it.”
Q: When you first entered the race and came to South Carolina, there was a lot of discussion about you being openly gay and married. And I wonder if you feel like the conversation has evolved beyond that. All these stories written about you, ... feel like that conversation has evolved past that concern?
A: “Yeah, I think one contribution we’ve been able to make, even before the first vote is cast, is to demonstrate that this is something that you cannot have define you and at the same time never have to run away from. And so, I’ve been very inspired by people who let me know what it means to them, whether it’s an older generation wishing a younger version of themselves could have seen this to high school kids letting me know what this campaign means to them. And you know often it’s the 10th or 12th thing on the list of what folks want to talk about when we’re talking about my campaign. So, I think now that the novelty has worn off, we’ve been able to demonstrate that an out candidate can compete alongside anybody else and I think a lot of the hand wringing over the politics of it has run its course.”
Q: When you’re meeting people here in South Carolina, does anyone ask you about it? Does anyone want to talk about it? (28:33)
A: “Occasionally somebody wants to be reassured about the politics of it, and that’s when I talk about the experience of South Bend. You know, it was a reelection year when I came out. And we’re a community, we’re a Democratic city, but we’re not known for being a very socially, we’re a more socially conservative Democratic city. And a lot of different folks around the community might’ve reacted any number of ways. And in the end, with Mike Pence as the governor of Indiana and my socially conservative comparatively older Democratic city, we got 80% of the vote — more than I did the first time around in my election. And I think that tells us everything we needed to know.
“But most voters if they care about it at all, it’s out of a desire to understand how it shapes my story and what I learned in that process. Not as something that I think really decides how they’re going to view whether to vote for me. Mostly again because the election’s about, it’s not about my life, it’s about theirs. And, if I have the right answer on how your life’s going to get better, I think all the other stuff fades away.”
Q: Are there any narratives that have followed you this past year that you feel like are just completely false?
A: “Well, there’s this idea that I’m not emotional. I tear up at previews, not just at movies. I’m a very emotional person. I’m also disciplined, and I think that’s really important, because politics is an emotional process. It’s about our hopes and dreams and things that we are right to be angry about. And my job is to channel that emotional energy and use it to deliver real change.
“I also think I need to confront head on false narratives about my relationship with the black community in my hometown. There’s a reason why the black voters who know me best are those most likely to support me. Doesn’t mean everybody. Of course I’ve got my critics, especially in local politics. What mayor doesn’t have their critics. But the work that we’ve done to cut black unemployment, cut black poverty, empower minority-owned businesses, to invest in neighborhoods that felt completely neglected, to change the way we approach policing and safety — the work that we’ve done and the progress that we’ve made, I think, helps to explain why most of the black elected officials from my hometown who chose to make endorsements in this race are supporting me. So, when a media narrative starts to build, I think my job is to make sure that we tell the right story about where I came from and it’s important to us, and not just in my voice, but now making sure that others who can tell that story are out there. And that we’re also honest about the times we came up short.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
