Nickname(s): Mayo Pete, Alfred E. Neuman, Barack Husse-Gay Obama
Known associates: Chasten Buttigieg, Lis Smith
Occupation: Cable news pundit, (nominal) U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Education: Harvard, Oxford, studied abroad in Afghanistan
Political experience: Served two terms as mayor of South Bend, Ind., the fifth-largest city in the 17th-largest state. Ran failed campaign for chairman of the Democratic National Committee before launching failed campaign for president at the age of 37.
Accomplishments: Buttigieg is the second openly gay cabinet member, and the first openly gay cabinet member to be really bad at his job. He was the most popular Democratic presidential candidate among residents of the élite “boat shoe” strongholds of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket.
Hates freedom? Yas queen.
Why/how? He rides a bicycle, for crying out loud. His campaign song was “High Hopes” by Panic! at the Disco.
Claim to shame: Buttigieg worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company, where he served on the front lines of corporate downsizing and advised a Canadian supermarket chain that was fixing bread prices.
What they’re saying: “Ain’t s— changed,” said Shawn White, a black 24-year-old resident of South Bend, in a 2019 interview with CNBC. “How is he gonna run the whole country if you can’t even get your city right first?”
Lis Smith, a senior adviser on Buttigieg’s failed presidential campaign, once likened his demeanor to “the f—ing Tin Man” “reading a f—ing shopping list.”
Fun fact: Former president Barack Obama reportedly dismissed Buttigieg as “too short” to be president.
What’s next? Running for president until the end of time.
