Alfred E. Neumann for President, Mad Magazine (December 1956) bears uncanny resemblance to South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete.
Alfred E. Neuman for President, Mad Magazine, December 1956

In 2019, the number of people running for President was overwhelming. The running joke of any politician was “I’m not running for President.” Of all the candidates who survived 2019, Mayor Pete is not The One.

First, let me disclose. I am an ardent supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders. I committed early to support Sen. Sanders because I believe that he is the person in the presidential race whose agenda is most closely aligned with the values of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Now let me speak my truth.

A Double Standard

Mayor Pete is the Mayor of South Bend Indiana. South Bend is an American city with a population of roughly 100,000 people. He was elected as Mayor for a second term in November 2015. Voter turnout was a low 14%. Mayor Pete was elected with a whopping total of 8,515 votes.

Compare Mayor Pete’s victory with the recent wins of Black women Mayors. In 2019, there were only 5 Black women Mayors in cities with a population of over 500,000.00. Topping the list is Lori Lightfoot, who was elected Chicago Mayor with 364,965 votes. The remaining four big City Black women Mayors include London Breed in San Francisco, Vi Lyles in Charlotte, NC, Muriel Bowser in DC, and Catherine Pugh in Baltimore. Breed won in the hotly contested 2018 special election with 89,580 votes. She won in the 2019 general election with 125,200 votes. Vi Lyles won her first race for Mayor in 2017 with 72,073 votes. Murial Bowser was elected to her first term as DC Mayor in 2014 with 96,666 votes. Catherine Pugh won her election in 2016 with 134,848 votes.

The next 4 Black women Mayors of major cities with populations of way more than 100,000 people include Atlanta (Keisha Lance Bottoms), New Orleans (Latoya Cantrell), Baton Rouge (Sharon Weston Broome) and Rochester (Lovely Warren). My point is, had any one of these accomplished Black women jumped up and announced she was running for President, she would not have made it past the first round of the Democratic Party chopping block. And we would still be laughing.

When placed in the context of women Mayors of color, Mayor Pete’s candidacy is an outright insult to Black women. But wait, there’s more.

Buttigieg: “I’m Not Asking For Your Vote”

Mayor Pete’s tenure as Mayor of South Bend since 2011 has been a disaster for Black folks there. According to a 2017 city study, two in five African Americans in South Bend live below the poverty line, which is almost double the national poverty rate for African American households. In a city that’s 27% black and 15% Latino, 90% of South Bend’s police officers are white.

Tiana Batiste Waddell speaks during a meeting with police and Mayor Pete.
Photograph: Robert Franklin/AP

In June 2019, on Father’s Day, a white policeman shot and killed 56-year-old Eric Logan. The officer claims that Mr. Logan attacked him with a knife but the officer did not turn on his bodycam. The family says Mr. Logan had no history of violence or thievery and he did not match the description of the suspect. A lawsuit is pending.

In August 2016, in a case of mistaken identity, South Bend officers burst into the home of a Black family, beat 17-year-old DeShawn Franklin out of his bed and tased him with a stun gun. Police went to the wrong house and mistook DeShawn for a domestic battery suspect. A federal jury found the police had violated DeShawn’s constitutional rights, but only awarded DeShawn and his parents $18.00 in damages. The lawyer who represented the family was expected to pay the City’s legal fees.

An exchange with Mayor Pete and Black activists in South Bend protesting Eric Logan’s murder says it all. In a video that went viral on Twitter last summer, Mayor Pete makes the arrogant statement “I’m not asking for your vote.” The quick response from a Black woman is “You ain’t gonna get it either.” Please check out the video.

Buttigieg Cannot Win Without Black Voters

In a January 2020 poll of Black voters, Mayor Pete holds steady at 3%. That same poll shows him with a strongly favorable rating of only 6% among all the Democratic candidates. Only Amy Klobuchar scored lower on that measure with 4%.

Nonetheless, if Mayor Pete thinks he can win the nomination or the Presidency without significant support from Black voters, then he is really stupid. Or racist. Or both?

Mayor Pete’s donor base of affluent white gay men laid the foundation for him to run his race. His wealthy LGBT backers come from Hollywood, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and other industries, as well as the political elites, many of them billionaires. His campaign stayed alive in 2020 when more seasoned political players like New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker could not.

Still, the most reliable voters in the Democratic Party are Black women. And quite frankly, some of us think it’s absolutely ridiculous that Mayor Pete thinks he can actually be our President. In the words of one wise girlfriend, “honey, this is no time for new booty.”

Will somebody please tell Mayor Pete that he is not “The One.”