The Conservative Case for Mayor Pete
There are several presidential candidates who have served as local officials, but there is nothing like a mayor who is currently serving to be the next occupant of the Oval Office as the 46th President of the United States. As Thomas Jefferson once remarked, “The government closest to the people serves the people best.” Thomas Jefferson’s rationale is precisely why we need a mayor in the Oval Office and why conservatives should support Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
As somebody who has served in the leadership of the Connecticut Republican Party, I have seen how the party has drifted away from its core values and morphed into the henchmen of Trump’s perverse ideology. Mayors across the nation do not have have the luxury of playing partisan political games. They have to find real solutions to fix real peoples’ problems — electing a Mayor will show and deliver a mandate to solve the major issues of our time in a collaborative fashion, such as rebuilding infrastructure. While yes, I concede Mr. Buttigieg doesn’t hold what would be traditionally called “conservative values” he is able to articulate and justify his position in a rational way.
Mayor Pete has the executive leadership skills, but he also brings the discipline and focus that comes from military experience. A President does not need to know everything, but needs to know when and how to access reliable information and have a natural inclination to learn.
On a national level, conservatives for decades have espoused the fundamental principle that family starts at home. Mayor Pete’s candidacy is challenging that orthodoxy. It is time that we accept that this principle is not simply a conservative one, but an American one. By the grace of the “swing” vote of Justice Kennedy, the United States now achieved marriage equality. In the landmark decision, Justice Kennedy penned, “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach… liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.”
The fundamental part of Obergefell rested on the notion of upholding the “freedoms” enshrined in our Constitution. Buttigieg claims that the cornerstone of his campaign is going to be the inherently American themes of “Freedom, Security, Democracy.” We must not forget that these concepts, are not owned by liberals or conservatives, democrats or republicans, but they are woven into the fabric of our nation by our founders who expressed them in our constituting documents.
More specifically, a foundational element of Mr. Buttigieg’s stump speech nowadays focuses on the issue of ‘freedom’ and how it has been “monopolized” by the right wing of American culture, saying we must move past the notion that being free is a left-right issue; there are many other nations which are rooted in ‘freedom’. Buttigieg is talking about liberty like no candidate has this cycle. Mayor Pete is a thoughtful and pragmatic leader, whose governing philosophy seems to be more of a democratic-libertarian than one of the left wing ideology.
This election will be decided by those of newer generations — Millennials and Generation Z’ers, those who were born in the 1990s. This block will control 37% of the electorate, it is not farfetched to say that by gaining and empowering this voting bloc will ensure a path to victory.
At the end of the day, the next President of the United States needs to bring a sense of reality back to the Oval Office. Somebody who is a policy wonk and an uniter, who is not afraid to push our nation forward to form, a more perfect Union.
###
John Board was the Vice Chairman of the Connecticut Federation of College Republicans in 2015. He currently resides in the City of New Britain, Connecticut.
