Pete Buttigieg likes to boast about his “unconventional” experience as a small-town mayor on the campaign trail, but some of the residents in South Bend, Indiana, say he is unqualified to be president based on their dealings with him.
“If he’s the next president, I fear for our country. He couldn’t run our city. How can he run the United States?” Michelle Burger, a 42-year-old mother, told the New York Post on Tuesday. “Look at all the crime — he didn’t do anything about it. Look at our quality of life. If he becomes president, the United States will become one big South Bend — a giant sinkhole. We’ll be in a new depression.”
Rev. Sylvester Williams Jr., who is part of the Interfaith Christian Union in South Bend, pointed to murder rates going up while Buttigieg was mayor. “We had a record number of homicides during his time as mayor,” Williams Jr. said. “And it didn’t seem like he was feeling the people’s psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs.”
“It seemed like he was focused on creating a progressive city, that he was above tending to those basic needs,” he added.
Buttigieg has seen criticism in the past, particularly from the black community, over how he has tried to reform the city.
[Opinion: Sorry, Pete Buttigieg, but South Bend hasn’t prepared you to be president]
Last summer, the former mayor was met with angry protesters over a fatal police shooting of a black man. One black woman told Buttigieg, “You running for president and you expect black people to vote for you?” He responded, “I’m not asking for your vote.”
Buttigieg served as mayor of South Bend from 2012 to January of this year.
Councilman Henry Davis Jr. called Buttigieg “inept” and a person who “always and one foot out the door” during his tenure as mayor. “He really has never been here and committed to the growth and the [functionality] of this community. It’s always been a gateway to something that he believed was larger,” Davis Jr. said.
In the February Democratic debate, former Vice President Joe Biden slammed Buttigieg for his lack of experience and his strained relationship with minorities. “Mayor Buttigieg is a great guy and a real patriot … [but] he was the mayor of a small city but has not demonstrated the ability to get a broad scope of support including among African Americans and Latinos,” Biden said.
Buttigieg has a slim lead over the Democratic presidential field in the delegate count after voting in Iowa and New Hampshire. He is currently in fifth place in national polling with 10% support, according to a RealClearPolitics average.
