Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor, Democratic Presidential candidate, and advisor to the Biden/Harris campaign Mayor Pete Buttigieg stopped in at The Late Show With James Corden to make one final push for voters to get to the polls. The openly-gay politician also opened up about how he copes with stress.
“It’s all going to come down to getting out the vote,” Buttigieg affirmed, once again reminding viewers to vote. Buttigieg then addressed the recent intimidating behavior by Trump supporters, including an attempt by Trumpers to run a Biden/Harris campaign bus off the road.
“There’s a level of panic on his side,” Buttigieg observed. “This behavior that you’re talking about. This is not the kind of thing you do when you’re winning. It’s a show of desperation and it’s not going to help. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years it’s that shutting down bridges in New Jersey has not exactly worked well for the Republican Party.” The former mayor’s last comment refers to a controversy involving then-New Jersey governor Chris Christie who infamously shut down several lanes on the George Washington Bridge which connects the state with New York City. The subsequent traffic pileup was widely seen a political retribution by Christie against Fort Lee, NJ Mayor Mark Sokolich for not supporting Christie’s re-election bid.
Related: WATCH: Mayor Pete, Tenacious D, Susan Sarandon do the ‘Time Warp’ to get out the vote
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Buttigieg also offered a message of hope to viewers, warning that no matter what the outcome of the election, the United States will endure.
“We have to find a way to get through this,” the former mayor said. “This is a country that has been through pandemics, it has been through wars, at one point half the country broke off and declared war against the other half, and this country still stands. We have got to find a way through this and I believe that starts with electing new leadership.”
“Now, we’re also the generation that could blow it,” Buttigieg continued. “That’s part of the reason this election is so high stakes. But if we get it right in the next few years, the 2020s could go down in history as the time America stood up and turned in a better direction and by the middle of this century could be delivering to humanity something as important as the founding of America itself. I really believe that – if we do the work, and that’s why we’re doing the work.”
Corden then pivoted to asking Buttigieg to share something from home in a “show & tell” type style. Buttigieg showed a red baseball he received on his first date with his husband, Chasten. The two had gone to a baseball game in South Bend, where Buttigieg got the ball as a giveaway. Immediately after, he and Chasten held hands for the first time.
“That moment we held hands was one of the best moments of my life,” Buttigieg beamed. “I keep this baseball around because they were giving them out that night. It’s just a reminder of how any given night can change the rest of your life.”
Corden then asked if Pete could come on the show every night, and that Buttigieg should one day run for president again. We kind of have to agree…
woodroad34
Lovely story about the baseball. And the immense sense of relief to hear a thoughtful, well-managed reply come out of someone…I feel like he is what America should be.
missvamp
Love mayor pete!
Beachman
Intelligent & classy…..what more could we ask for. Except for him to run again, which I believe he will.
Gadfeal
Pete almost makes me believe that there are some politicians who are motivated by altruism and willing to change the deformed implementation of democracy, governed by a way obsolete 18th Century manifesto of White, male, taxpaying or land-owning minority. The Constitution was when there were about 200-300 thousand eligible voters (fewer than a medium sized city today) and only 13 Colonies, and it was in 18th Century English.
To put that in perspective, would you think that any law created 250 years ago should remain as if it were etched in stone to be preserved with religious fervor? Even the language has changed. The first dictionary of (modern) English was only published in 1850, only 10 years before the American Revolution.
Going from 200k voters to over 200 million, from 13 Colonies to 50 States, the mechanism to revise the Constitution is impossible to deploy. For example, the simple amendment to subject Senate compensation subject to Congressional approval was ratified by the requisite 75% of States in the 1990’s, 200 years after it was first drafted!
It is also glaringly unfair that a State with fewer than 600k (Wyoming) people has as much senate sway as a State with some 40 million (California). Is it fair that voters in Wyoming have near 70 times disproportional influence on the Senate than those in California?
In addition, there are some 8-12 million expatriate Americans who have to file US taxes for life who cannot vote as a block. That’s a group more numerous than 75% of US States. They have zero caucus as the law only permits an expatriate to vote in the last physical district in the US; that makes no sense as expatriates do not have “local” circumstances. France, for example, has a special parliamentarian group for such voters (who, by the way, DON’T have to file French taxes if they are not resident in France).
What of Puerto Rico, whose population are US citizens but unable to vote in Federal elections? Puerto Rico was more populous than 19 US States and referenda for Statehood has been requested repeatedly? Is that fair and democratic.
I am cynical that there would be every any way to fundamentally revise the US Constitution – a man-made legal document sclerosed for over two centuries.
The only possibility is a “benevolent” domineering President who brings about a Constitutional Convention of States to re configure the electoral college system, using as “leverage” in this just endeavor, withholding of Federal funds and programs provided by the majority population. Expand the number of senators per State to reflect that State’s population, get rid of “Winner Takes All” electoral college votes in a State. Society is not binary, so why have we been saddled with an obsolete, vested interests cabal-controlled form of political system???
KyleMichelSullivan
Mayor Pete should be press secretary. He would kick ass and put all those cretins under the Orange Bastard to shame. It would also give him great visibility. VP in 2024?