South Bend mayor uses 'Hoosierness' in bid to mend broken party

But the two Hoosiers share what political observer Andy Downs calls a “Midwestern politeness” that may have lasting impact on their respective parties.

The even-keeled Pence appears already to be tempering the impact of his volatile running mate, President-elect Donald Trump. Or, he’s at least playing what CNN’s Eric Bradner (a former Indiana Statehouse reporter) describes as the role of “fixer” with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Buttigieg’s aspirations are to fix the Democratic Party and keep it from stumbling back into the mistakes of the past, marked most recently by the divisive intra-party nomination fight between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in November, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Earlier this month, Buttigieg, 34, officially entered what is now a six-way contest to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics, calls him the “long-shot” candidate in a race dominated by Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, a Clinton supporter, and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a Sanders man.

Buttigieg’s decision to jump into the fray wasn’t much of a surprise.

In November, post-election, Buttigieg wrote an impassioned essay for the online site Medium.com, titled “A Letter from Flyover Country.”

In it he argued Democrats, now at their lowest numbers in statehouses and governors mansions since the 1920s, should turn away from Washington as they plot their comeback.

Buttigieg started the letter with some Hoosier charm, instructing readers how to pronounce his Maltese surname: “Most people have trouble pronouncing my name, so they just call me ‘Mayor Pete.’”

He described his current job, to which he was elected at age 29, as the “best job in America” because mayors get to focus on “results, not ideology.”

Buttigieg would be an interesting savior for the Democrats.

A Harvard University graduate, Rhodes Scholar and Afghanistan war veteran, he was re-elected with 80 percent of the vote in his blue-collar, conservative Catholic hometown last year. That after publicly revealing he is gay and has a longtime partner who is a middle school teacher.

Buttigieg’s task now is to convince a simple majority of 447 members of the Democratic National Committee — or 224 people — to cast their ballots for him.

He’s been calling, visiting and cajoling in recent days, traveling near and far to make his case publicly and privately to state party leaders and political activists who make up the committee.

“You’d be surprised how many people have said they want a fresh start,” Buttigieg said from his South Bend office on a recent morning. “Even people who’ve been there for ages.”

Buttigieg’s personable nature — what Downs calls “Hoosierness” — may be one of his best assets, especially if the pendulum of national political discourse has peaked in terms of nastiness and is swinging back toward civility.

“Perhaps the likable guy is who they’re looking for,” Downs said. “Quite often it’s the likable guy who can work with the other side.”

Buttigieg likes to say mayors — especially people like him, who are Democrats in Republican states — can offer insight into how the party can get back in touch with the “everyday” concerns of most voters.

“Mayors have an edge in convincing people that Democrats can be good at governing,” he said, as opposed to a tendency of party leaders to engage in what he terms “ideological obfuscation.”

“There is no fooling people when you’re a mayor,” he said. “Either the pothole got fixed or it didn’t. Either the trash got picked up or it didn’t.

“There is a lot less of the kind of nonsense that permeates the national conversation,” he said.

It’s not clear now whether Democrats are ready nationally for that perspective, but the next few weeks will be telling. National committee members meet in late February to pick their new leader. Buttigieg says if he wins, he’ll step down as mayor.

Even if Buttigieg doesn’t win, he’ll have raised his profile in the party significantly, and cast it as that of a thoughtful man with a bright future.

“It’s a no-lose situation for him,” said Downs, before jokingly adding, “other than, do you really want to be chairman of the DNC?”