Nearly 60 mayors across the country endorsed South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s bid for president in a USA Today op-ed on Wednesday.
Dayton, Ohio Mayor Nan Whaley, who recently made headlines after the deadly shooting in her city last month, was one of the op-ed’s signatories.
The mayors, some of whom are no longer in office, cited mayoral duties and Buttigieg’s experience in South Bend as the reason for their endorsement.
“Pete has transformed South Bend, and now he is showing what American leadership can and should be in the years ahead,” the mayors wrote.
Their endorsement praised Buttigieg for putting “practical solutions over partisan ideology.”
“For mayors, politics isn’t a blood sport,” they wrote. “While inaction and gridlock are the norm in Washington, mayors don’t have the option to kick the can down the road.”
“Our residents expect electricity when they flip the switch, clean water from their taps and trash picked up regularly,” the mayors continued. “It would be unthinkable for a mayor like Pete to shut down the government because of a petty ideological disagreement.”
The endorsement concludes with the argument that as a fellow mayor, Buttigieg “understands the power of moral leadership.”
“When we cut a ribbon at a new factory, or comfort a grieving parent whose child was lost to gun violence, we are showing the people we represent that their community stands with them,” the mayors wrote. “That kind of empathetic leadership is desperately needed in the Oval Office.”
