Is
America
Ready
for
Mayor
Pete?
P
LUMBERS AND STEAMFITTERS Local Union 33 has a sculpture of two 20-foot wrenches emerging from
the mud out by its pocked parking lot in Des Moines, Iowa. Inside, a public bathroom features a shower
adorned with gone-gray towels and multiple containers of industrial-strength body wash, presumably for
cleaning up after some kind of toxic toilet encounter. It is all very manly. If this were a Joe Biden event,
the ex-VP would just grunt “Scranton, Scranton” for 30 minutes before waving and disappearing back into his mo-
torcade. ¶ But it’s not. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg sits up front. Well, he sits for a moment but then stands be-
cause he is not tall. He is jacketless, and wearing one of his 612 white-shirt-and-blue-tie combos. The outfit and his
Supercuts haircut make him look like the guy whose plot arc was cut out of Office Space. ¶ He fields a question from
He’s a Rhodes
scholar, speaks
eight languages,
served in
Afghanistan
and is the first
openly gay
presidential
candidate. And
against the odds,
his campaign
is catching fire64 | Rolling Stone | July 2019
Photographs by
Lyndon FrenchBy Stephen
Rodrick