SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said Monday he won’t seek a third term, fueling speculation he may run for president in 2020.
Pete Buttigieg, an openly gay 36-year-old who gained national attention as he campaigned for Democratic National Committee chairman last year , declined to comment on his future political plans. He said he doesn’t expect to make any announcements before January.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that we’re looking at things, and we’ll continue to do so going into the new year,” he said.
Asked whether he’d comment about a possible presidential bid, he smiled and replied “nope.”
Buttigieg is scheduled to speak Saturday at an Iowa political dinner along with other potential Democratic presidential candidates. He also spoke at a Progress Iowa event last year.
He authored a book that’s scheduled to be released in February about his life and experience as mayor of the northwest Indiana community of roughly 100,000.
Buttigieg is a Rhodes Scholar who won his first term in 2011, at age 29. In 2015 he publicly announced he was gay in a newspaper column. Five months later he won his second term as mayor with more than 80 percent of the vote.
He married his husband, Chasten Glezman, in June.
Buttigieg also served as a Naval Reserve officer in Afghanistan in 2014.
If he gets elected, I wonder if the press will obsess over his husband’s wardrobe. Well, OK, of course they will, the MSM will never pass up a chance to spend hours of coverage on trivial subjects.
He reminds me a bit of Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory.
We are going to miss Pete here in South Bend. I am wondering what his plans will be. I can not imagine a gay man running for President with the hate of the evilgenital GOP so strong and voter suppression so strong. If folks hate powerful women, what will they be like with a gay man?
I asked Chasten is he would give a tour of the White House similar to Jackie Kennedy. Of course the Holiday decorations will not be as tacky as they have been the last few years.
Maybe he’s going to run for some other office first? Perhaps I’m old and out of touch, but I see this article as part of a right-wing pushback making sure voters in the heartland understand that the democrats are going to ram gay marriage down everyone’s throat (ahem).