Boniface Ihiasota
As Americans prepare for the presidential election next year, the country may for the first time record a gay president.
This followed the declaration of Mayor of South Bend, Pete Buttigieg, who officially launched his presidential campaign at his country home last Sunday.
Buttigieg is joining other aspirants running on the platform of the Democratic Party. He is seeking the party’s nomination as its presidential candidate.
He has since been reaching out to financial bigwigs in the party to support his ambition, with more than two dozens fundraisers so far contacted, says a local medium, CNBC.
Some of the fundraisers to include Steve Elmendorf, a business magnate, who supported Hillary Clinton with more than $100,000 for the 2016 presidential election, and a film producer and environmental activist Laurie David who produced the Oscar-winning climate change documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”.
“The more I watched him, the more I thought he was performing at a level above all the other candidates,” said Elmendorf.
“He has an optimistic message and I liked him. I just think everything about him is the opposite of Trump in a good way and when he answers every question he’s trying to find solutions. He’s not attacking anyone.
“I think he’s put himself out there in every possible venue. He’s done every possible interview and has done well. He comes across as authentic,” Elmendorf told CNBC.
If he wins the party’s candidacy and elected in the November 2020 presidential election that will also be contested by President Donald Trump who will be seeking reelection, Buttigieg will become the first gay president in the history of the country.
The openly gay mayor is always kissed in public by his husband, Chasten Glezman, after delivering any public speech.
In December 2017, Buttigieg announced his engagement to Glezman, a junior high school teacher whom he had been dating since August 2015 after meeting on the dating app Hinge, according to local reports. They were married on June 16, 2018, in a private ceremony at the Cathedral of St. James, South Bend, Indiana.
In a report by CNBC the gay mayor and naval officer, criticised President Donald Trump’s administration, saying “American dream is slipping away under the present administration”.
According to the report, Buttigieg explained that capitalism was beneficial but only for those who could leverage it.
“American capitalism is one of the most productive forces ever known to man, and there’s so much that this country has been able to unlock, especially in the last century, in terms of technology, in terms of prosperity,” he said.
He went on to criticize policies that have hindered peoples ability to be successful in an American capitalistic society and has led to inequality.
“The economy is not some creature that just lumbers along on its own. It’s an interaction between private sector and public sector. And public sector policies, for basically as long as I’ve been alive, have been skewed in a direction that’s increasing inequality,” he said.
Meanwhile, mixed reactions have continued to trail Buttigieg’s presidential ambition, with many condemning is homosexuality for being not ideal for presidency, just as others are throwing their weights behind him.
