I saw myself in Pete Buttigieg. I know that some people had concerns with him, and he was by no means the perfect candidate, but it is not something I can say for any other presidential candidate in the current presidential race, or any presidential race I have voted in before.
Since Mayor Pete made his historical announcement that he would run to be the next president of the United States I have had my eyes — along with my support and vote — locked on him. I like his calm, cool and collected manner. He doesn’t take a stage yelling and waving his arms around frantically. He doesn’t belittle and demean anyone, unlike the current Commander-in-Chief. Pete is smart, articulate and is well prepared every time he takes a debate or town hall stage.
The same words I’ve used to describe Pete are some of the same I used when I described my support for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. I saw a lot of similarities in the way the two present themselves and I still think Hillary would have made a fantastic president. But I didn’t see myself in Hillary.
Pete is a military veteran, as am I. As someone who served this country, I cannot tell you how much the leadership skills and core values an individual learns in the military are the skills and values I want to see in my president, and those values were a big part of my support for him. You can see those skills on the debate stage when he speaks rationally, even as the other candidates around him rant and holler. Many people saw Pete when he spoke as rehearsed and without passion. I saw a reserved and intelligent man who, as president, I would not have to worry about him taking to Twitter in the middle of the night to call women “sad” or “nasty” or address other nations around the world as “shitholes.”
Pete is a religious man, which I know many progressives weren’t on board with and I get that. I was raised Baptist, and while I do not attend church now nor would I call myself a Christian, when I hear how Pete speaks of his faith I hear the loving and accepting voices from my family who are almost all Christian and who all accept and love me just as I am.
As the first openly gay man to run for the nation’s highest office, I felt it when Pete spoke about struggling with coming out and his own sexuality. More than any other similarities in Pete and I that I see, this is the biggest one. Even with an open and accepting family, I struggled with coming out. As a kid of the 80s and 90s, I saw what being an openly gay man was like. I remember seeing what happened to Matthew Shepard on TV. I remember hearing about AIDS and paying extra special attention when the news called it “the gay cancer.”
I saw a lot of myself in Pete so I was disappointed when I heard he was getting out of the race. As I listened to Pete announce he was dropping out of the race to the crowd in South Bend, Indiana, I could hear that love of country in him, I could hear that passion so many pundits said he didn’t have. But the most telling part of who Pete is as a person was not when he spoke, but when his husband, Chasten spoke to the crowd. He said “After falling in love with Pete, Pete got me to believe in myself again … I told Pete to run because I knew there were other kids sitting out there … who needed to believe in themselves too.”
That is probably the most important and best part of Pete’s historic run, the fact that he showed a country full of LGBTQ kids that whatever they dream, it is all possible.
Now that Pete is out of the race that doesn’t mean I don’t vote. My support will now go behind another candidate. Who? I do not know yet, but I want to say thank you to Pete Buttigieg for showing this loud, overweight, positive, openly gay veteran that I am allowed to be myself no matter what in life I strive for and for showing me that whatever I do that I am enough for me.
Now, no matter whom you are putting your support behind, make sure to vote and have your voice heard.
Speaking of voting, in this issue we have the results of the annual Watermark Awards for Variety and Excellence, the WAVES. After weeks of your own campaigning it is time to see who our reader’s favorites are in Central Florida and Tampa Bay.
In news, we preview the upcoming Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus Winter Conference in Orlando, we take a look at an exciting merger in Tampa Bay between Empath Health and Stratum Health and we remember the openly gay mayor of Wilton Manors, Justin Flippen, who passed away unexpectedly at the age of 41.
