A gay, married, Arabic speaking Christian could topple Trump
Donald Trump is a wily operator who retains his devoted voters no matter the scandal. But he may have competition come election time with a candidate entirely his opposite, writes Dennis Atkins.
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American politics really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Eleven years ago an African American freshman senator from Illinois came out of the ruck and beat the establishment favourite and big-name hotshot Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses.
Barack Hussein Obama with a mixed race background featuring a father with Kenyan heritage and a white mother from Wichita, Kansas defied every inside baseball rule and made pundits look like chumps.
Obama prospered in office even though he faced brutal opposition in Congress and large sections of a restive community. Two terms divided the country and the sluggish, slow moving recovery from the financial crisis set up a difficult climb for a succeeding Democratic candidate in 2016.
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The party of Kennedy, Johnson and FDR shrugged it off as they watched the Republicans perform what looked like political cannibalism.
A two-tiered primary season threw up the most unlikely nominee, New York real estate mogul and failed casino shyster Donald J. Trump.
Despite losing the popular vote by more than three million ballots, Trump swept through the industrial Midwest states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa and had enough electoral college delegates to become the 45th President of the USA.
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You couldn’t write a script like it.
There was no candidate more unlike Obama than Trump and the no drama, no scandal, high minded Harvard law professor who wanted to do things was succeeded by a grifter from Fifth Avenue in NYC.
Now Trump is well into the third quarter of his first term and, despite his party getting walloped at the midterm Congressional elections last November, he fancies his chances of getting re-elected in 2020.
Trump believes he’s seen off the Russian collusion probe by special counsel Robert Mueller — his Attorney-General Robert Barr finessed the release of a redacted copy of the report.
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In truth Trump’s problems are far from over but he is a wily, slippery operator who manages to hold his devoted base come scandal, come shock and awe, come just about anything.
So, if Obama was succeeded by someone who is, in every way, the complete opposite, can we expect an anti-Trump to step up come November, 2020?
It just happens that a wildcard candidate is moving through the crowded pack of Democratic Party wannabes who are lining up to contest those all important Iowa caucuses in January next year.
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There are so many announced candidates it is now bigger news when someone says they’re not running.
The wildcard is the mayor of a relatively small town in the Midwestern state of Indiana.
South Bend is the fourth largest city in Indiana — its population is just over 100,000 in a state where almost seven million people live.
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is a 37-year-old former naval intelligence officer who’s been mayor of South Bend since 2012.
Going from a mayoral office to the White House is not unheard of in the US — Calvin Coolidge was Mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts and Andrew Johnson held the top municipal post in Greenville, Tennessee while Grover Cleveland was mayor of Buffalo, New York.
What makes Mayor Buttigieg different is not just that he would be the youngest ever president if he was elected in November, 2020. He’s also a gay, devout Christian who comes with a husband, Chasten Glezman. They live with their two rescue dogs, Truman and Buddy.
Buttigieg — a name that’s pronounced “Buttatetch” — is something of a mixture of a prodigy and a polymath.
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He’s a self taught Norwegian speaker and is fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic and Farsi.
An accomplished pianist and guitarist, he performed as a guest soloist playing Rhapsody in Blue with the South Bend symphony orchestra alongside Ben Folds.
Like most political hopefuls, Buttigieg has written a book telling his story, Shortest Way Home, which is in the top 30 bestsellers and he has plenty of endorsements other hopefuls would steal for.
The Washington Post called him the “most interesting mayor you’ve never heard of” and New York Times marquee columnist Frank Bruni gushed over Buttigieg in a lead op-ed three years ago.
Buttigieg is running third in the early Iowa Democratic caucus polls — having come from nowhere — and he’s raised a handy $US70 million in just over three months.
On top of all this he’s putting together a formidable policy package, starting with what he knows best, urban renewal and local job creation.
He’s going to be a force in the primaries and — here’s the thing — Trump will have no idea how to handle Mayor Pete.
Dennis Atkins is The Courier-Mail’s national affairs editor.
dennis.atkins@news.com.au
Don’t miss Dennis Atkins and Malcolm Farr’s politics podcast Two Grumpy Hacks, free on iTunes or Soundcloud.
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