Holding Pete Buttigieg's final rally on the Sunday before the Iowa caucuses in the gym at Lincoln High School in Des Moines spoke volumes: this was where Hillary Clinton held her last event on the eve of the first-in-the-nation presidential selection procedure four years ago.
At the Clinton event, supporters grew bored and listless as former President Bill Clinton went on with a lengthy tribute to his wife before she finally got to speak.
In striking contrast, the overflow crowd at Lincoln High — estimated by some to be at 3,000 people — vigorously cheered such speakers as Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Md., an early backer of his fellow veteran Buttigieg, and Waterloo, Iowa, Mayor Quentin M. Hart, who got to know Buttigieg during his two terms (2011-2019) as mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
(Both Brown and Hart are black — a not-too-subtle response to polls showing that the candidate they call "Mayor Pete" polls in the single digits among black and Hispanic voters.)
In remarks and in a brief question-and-answer session with the audience, Buttigieg demonstrated why he is increasingly emerging as the moderate favorite in the presidential race. He vowed to "reach far and wide to people of faith to help them realize God doesn't belong to a political party" and cited his background as a U.S. Navy veteran in Afghanistan in calling for a three-year sunset on any foreign military involvement.
He also declared he would win in November through a coalition of "Democrats, independents, and what I like to call 'future former Republicans.'"
From Chicago to Buttigieg's hometown of South Bend and other places inside and outside Iowa, Buttigieg's supporters in Des Moines Sunday made it clear to Newsmax they see "Mayor Pete," not former Vice President Joe Biden, as the centrist alternative to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
"We need a fresh face to win," Chase Williams, an American living in Taiwan who returned to the U.S. to canvass for Buttigieg, told Newsmax in an obvious reference to the 78-year-old Sanders. "Look, excluding incumbent presidents, since 1960, Democrats won the presidency only when they nominated a fresh face — John Kennedy in 1960, Jimmy Carter in '76, Bill Clinton in '92, and Barack Obama in '08."
Williams was wearing a T-shirt that read "Chasten for First Gentleman" — a reference to Buttigieg being a married gay man.
John Hale, who owns a business in Ankeny, Iowa, agreed with Williams on his support for Buttigieg.
"I really have nothing against Bernie," said Hale, who has been an active caucusgoer since the 1980s and who was an early backer of Obama in 2008 and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley in 2000. "But Pete presents a more pragmatic alternative than Bernie. They both want healthcare for all, but Pete offers a plan with choice for people."
"I'd say he presents an agenda of evolution rather than revolution," he added.
Tom Gearan, an angel investor who supports start-up companies and who hails from Oak Park, Illinois, has been an active campaigner for Democrats since 1960. "I handed out brochures for Jack Kennedy at age 3," he said. Gearan added that he has "a tremendous respect for the entire field" of Democrats runing for president.
"But I think Bernie is too far to the left and comes across as an angry, older man — and we've had enough anger," Gearan said. "In Pete, we have a man of ideas and a new face. We elected a black man president in '08 when times were bad and we needed someone different. Now times are worse and, again, we need someone different."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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