Colwell: South Bend's Pete Buttigieg making a move

Pete Buttigieg’s move to Michigan prompts speculation about possible future political opportunities.

The transportation secretary said his official move to Traverse City, hometown of his husband, Chasten, is primarily because Chasten’s parents are there to help with care for the Buttigieg adopted twins, born last September.

He will be registered to vote in Michigan and thus be eligible to run for office there. Think of the possibilities.

Buttigieg could run for mayor of Traverse City and once again be known as “Mayor Pete.” Let’s rule that one out.

He could run for governor or U.S. senator in a state where Democrats can win those offices. The governor and both senators in Michigan are Democrats. When asked about his political future, Buttigieg told Michigan reporters, as would be expected, “I’ve got more than enough to keep all of my energies occupied with the work of the Transportation Department.”

That’s true. He deals with allocation of a trillion dollars for infrastructure improvements and the nation’s many transportation problems.

The possibility of governor or senator as a stepping stone for another presidential bid would come into play only after 2024. Buttigieg wouldn’t run for the presidential nomination in ’24 if President Biden, as likely, seeks reelection. If Biden doesn’t, Buttigieg could run, but with transportation secretary as the stepping stone.

Any Indiana stepping stone would be very slippery, if Buttigieg still lived here. Chances of a Democrat winning statewide office in Indiana now are about the same as the Chicago Cubs have of winning the World Series.

The Detroit News reported that Buttigieg, in Grand Rapids to tout an airport grant, expressed enthusiasm for the family’s new home and also signaled that the move doesn’t mean abandoning South Bend loyalties. When Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel quipped, “I certainly hope that you like college football,” Buttigieg replied that he was delighted to call Michigan home, but “college football loyalties might be where I have to draw the line.”

Buttigieg also is in the news with excerpts from a book by Lis Smith, who was communications adviser for his meteoric presidential nomination showing in 2020.

In the book, “Any given Tuesday,” going on sale this week, Smith contrasts her experience of “the best” of politics with Buttigieg and the opposite she then encountered as an adviser to Andrew Cuomo as he self-destructed as governor of New York.

Smith writes that it took her 17 years and 20 campaigns “to claw my way up” to the top and serve “as a senior adviser on Pete Buttigieg’s against-all odds presidential campaign, where he’d defied conventional wisdom, won the Iowa caucuses and became one of the Democratic Party’s biggest stars. My star had risen as well.”

The hard-charging, rough-talking Smith is credited with convincing Buttigieg to take on every possible media interview, even with Fox News, and thus display his extraordinary message skills.

Then she became an adviser to Cuomo, who had been riding high until he was brought down by accusations of inappropriate conduct with women − accusations from one after another.

After each, she writes, Cuomo insisted to his advisers that there was nothing to it and nothing more would come.

Finally, she says, it was clear that Cuomo “led us down a path of defending him against claims of sexual harassment without giving us the full truth. We felt betrayed and misled.”

She explains: “It’s not like I was totally blind to the fact that political figures could lie or let me down. I’d seen the worst of politics up close. But I’d also seen the best of it. There was never a day that I showed up to work for Pete or was on a call with him where I doubted his truthfulness or sincerity.”

Sounds like Smith would support Buttigieg again − for anything from mayor of Traverse City to president.

Jack Colwell is a columnist for The Tribune. Write to him in care of The Tribune or by email at jcolwell@comcast.net.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Pete Buttigieg moving to Traverse City, Mich., his husband's hometown.