ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Are Americans ready for a male president who is married to another male and whose surname gives you lockjaw?

We’re talking about South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, of course.

Mr. Buttigieg’s husband is Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, a junior high school teacher who would be America’s very first “First Gentleman.”

Maybe an America of genderless bathrooms and of male makeovers winning women’s athletic competitions is ready.

The polls come down clearly on both sides of the question.

But why even bother asking?

Sexual persuasion aside, no one whose political experience has been limited to two terms as mayor of an American city has ever been a major party nominee, let alone elected to the Oval Office.

The “why” is that Mayor Pete is what’s happening.

He won rave reviews and some flat-out, first-place declarations for his debate performance in Cleveland a few days.

He’s young (37), speaks in full, clear, grammatical sentences, looks trim and fit — or as former Vice President Joseph R. Biden might say, “He’s clean-looking.”

Mr. Buttigieg can boast what Pocahontas, Feel the Burn, Slow Joe and, yes, even The Donald cannot: Military service. And yes, in our military.

As a U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer, Mr. Buttigieg began his prep for a presidential run by taking a seven-month leave from his day job as mayor.

He got himself a deployment to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan where he drove his commander on more than 100 dangerous trips to Kabul in 2014.

During his tour, he learned an Afghan dialect of Farsi. See, he’s whip-smart.

His Afghanistan war service later won him the Joint Meritorious Unit Award and the Joint Service Commendation Award.

In Iowa, the polls have him tied with Democratic oldster Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for second behind two other oldsters, Mr. Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who are in a statistical tie for first.

That’s Real Clear Politics’ average of polls in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

In New Hampshire — but wait. Let’s get this out of the way first:

If looking at his surname’s letters promotes consternation, don’t look. Instead, ask what you do when you fire a magistrate?

You boot a judge.

Which is exactly how you pronounce Buttigieg.

Back to New Hampshire, where RealClealPolitics.Com has him as the fourth car in the Warren-Biden-Sanders train, with Sen. Kamala D. Harris in the fifth car, polling half his numbers.

So here’s the mayor of the nation’s 306th most populous city in the17th most populous state. Yet he’s competing successfully with a former vice president and two well-known U.S. senators.

And beating the pants off several other U.S. senators with longer resumes and, except for Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, from bigger states: Ms. Harris of California and Sen. Cory A. Booker of New Jersey.

Meanwhile, things over which Mr. Buttigieg has no control are going his way.

To stiffen their wobbly knees, some reelection-sweating Republican lawmakers, braying indistinguishably from Democrats, have taken to shaking their fists at President Trump over Syria.

This lets Democrats think their presidential prospects are improving for next year.

That sugar-plumb fantasy turns more Democratic eyes toward Mr. Buttigieg’s way.

He’s unquestionably hot.

And he has a fawning press calling him a moderate.

Perfect. In an American age that celebrates the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer (LGBTQ) ways of life, Democrats will offer the ideal candidate:

Here’s Mr. Buttigieg, a homosexual man who is in a stable marriage to another man and who wants to boost military spending but opposes “Medicare for All” and a mandatory “assault” weapons buyback (he wants it voluntary).

He’s also leftist enough to want to decriminalize border jumping, end offshore drilling, put the kibosh on new oil and gas leases on federal property and abolish the death penalty.

So Boot-a-judge vs. The Donald is a good bet for Nov. 3, 2020?

Quinnipiac University’s poll says 70 percent of voters are “open” to electing a homosexual as president. That includes 46 percent of Republicans.

Voters are always the final judge and, doing their usual politically correct hemming and hawing, 52 percent of them said America “is not ready” to elect a homosexual as president. Only 36 percent said America is ready to greet a Mr. President and his husband.

So, based on those responses, do you elect to boot a judge — or think it possible to elect a Buttigieg?

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