Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

About that Pete Buttigieg Bernie Sanders essay…

WRITER’S NOTE: During a February 2020 Democratic debate in Nevada, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg about a 2000 essay he wrote in praise of Bernie Sanders. “The qualities I admired then are qualities I still respect a great deal,” Buttigieg responded. “I never said that I agree with every part of his policy views then or now.” And yet, as this article on the essay from February of last year reveals, they used to be aligned a bit more in terms of policy.

37-year-old South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a longshot presidential candidate in an already crowded Democratic field. At press time he’s still jockeying for the 65,000 individual donors needed to qualify for the first round of Democratically-sponsored debates in June. Meanwhile, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders has raised $10 million for his campaign less than a week after his campaign announcement.

But the two competing candidates, who both support progressive policies like Medicare for All (Writer’s note: In February of 2019, when this piece first ran, Buttigieg appeared to be in favor; he was later more explicit about supporting single-payer as an end goal after offering an elective public option), are simpatico on more than just a platform level. It looks like Sanders served as an early inspiration for Buttigieg’s political career.

In 2000, Buttigieg, then a student at St. Joseph’s High School in South Bend, submitted the winning entry for that year’s John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in Courage Essay Contest, Political Wire reported. He profiled Sanders.

The essay, which earned the high school senior a cash prize and photo op with JFK’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, praised Sen. Sanders as a tonic for post-millennium political cynicism for his commitment to bipartisanship and proud profession of his socialist ideals.

“Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: ‘Socialist,’” Buttigieg wrote. “Even though he has lived through a time in which an admitted socialist could not act in a film, let alone hold a Congressional seat, Sanders is not afraid to be candid about his political persuasion.”

Presciently, Mayor Buttigieg admired Sanders’ hard-won mayoral victory in then-red Vermont.

Ironically, considering the events of 2016, he also praised how Sanders weathered “criticism from the far left when he chose to grudgingly endorse President Clinton’s bids for election and re-election as President,” noting that the Vermont senator, when pressed about why he backed his one-day rival’s husband, “explained that while he disagreed with many of Clinton’s centrist policies, he felt that he was the best option for America’s working class.” Sanders only gave Hillary this kind of nod at the bitter end.

Buttigieg, who, if elected, would be the youngest and first openly-gay president, concluded that Sanders “represents President Kennedy’s ideal of ‘compromises of issues, not of principles.’” But Mayor Pete also leaves contemporary readers with a foreshadowing of his own future modeled on Sanders’ example.

“Above all, I commend Bernie Sanders for giving me an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption,” Buttigieg wrote. “I have heard that no sensible young person today would want to give his or her life to public service. I can personally assure you this is untrue.”

True that.

PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture intern. He can be reached at [email protected].

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.