Meet Pete

On the evening of Monday, December 9, 2019, Pete Buttigieg delivered his final address as Mayor to the South Bend Common Council. He recounted, no detail too small, eight years of his administration's progress toward fulfilling its singular mission statement: We deliver services that empower everyone to thrive. 

Afterward, I withdrew to Madison Oyster Bar, notebook atop the third-generation Simeri family bar top, to attempt to write this post—a “thank you” of sorts on Pete's last day in office. But sitting there I sensed that though "thank you" was warranted, it was lacking. Said alone, I feared it would communicate a kind of finality and separation that is incongruous with both our city’s ambition and current relationship with Pete.

At that moment, I remembered a photograph hanging behind the bar at Corby’s Irish Pub that I, among others, had long believed captures Pete better than words. Though shot during his first Mayoral campaign, I feel it contains the only message appropriate for today: Meet Pete.

With the fanfare of a young boy holding a wooden sign on Mishawaka Avenue, South Bend met Pete, a young, untried candidate espousing a municipal government bent on empowering its citizens. Too few are thriving for that work to be called complete, but there can be no doubt that it is underway.

And so, eight years later, Pete again finds himself the young, untried candidate, traveling the country espousing a new kind of politics. This time with the fanfare of his city—the old, imperfect, and resurgent South Bend.

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