Goodbye for now, Mayor Pete. But this is not farewell. Buttigieg’s run began with a kiss and ended with a kiss. Last night the Buttigiegs — Pete and Chasten — kissed in front of the roaring crowd.

Steven Petrow | Opinion columnist

Show Caption Hide Caption What is Super Tuesday and why is it important? A previous version of this video displayed an incorrect date in a graphic. It was 1988 when 14 Southern and border states held their primaries.

Pete Buttigieg’s campaign started with a kiss and ended with a kiss. And in the 322 days between the announcement of his candidacy in South Bend, Indiana, and its suspension in the same city Sunday night, Buttigieg made history by becoming the first openly gay man to run for president.

Soon after he joined the race for the White House I wrote on this site about Buttigieg’s candidacy: “Wait, what? A married gay man running for president, and that’s not disqualifying? Had anyone suggested this to me six months ago, I’d have said, 'No way, no gay.' "

After listening to him on that April 14, I changed my mind, writing: “For the first time, at that moment, I believed a gay man could be elected president.”

There he was in his uniform — a dark suit, pressed white shirt and blue tie — day after day. In a few short months, Mayor Pete vaulted to the top tier of more than two dozen Democratic contenders; he raised an astounding $24.8 million in the three-month period ending last June, and then, surprising many, the former small town mayor finished first in the Iowa caucuses last month.

Sure, he faced what seemed Sisyphean challenges. He could never broaden his base of support, especially among African Americans and Latinos, which the South Carolina primary results made abundantly clear last Saturday. (He won only 2% of the Palmetto State’s black vote, according to NBC News, and his Super Tuesday prospects didn’t look much better.)

To many LGBTQ people, he wasn’t gay or queer enough. Masha Gessen described in The New Yorker last month how a group called Queers Against Pete authored an open letter signed by 2,000 people. It began: “We cannot in good conscience allow Mayor Pete to become the nominee without demanding that he address the needs and concerns of the broader LGBTQ2IA communities.”

Among the issues listed: “police violence, incarceration, unaffordable health care, homelessness, deportation, and economic inequality among other things.” Gessen concluded, with no love for Buttigieg, “He is an old politician in a young man’s body, a straight politician in a gay man’s body.”

And the conservative right ran a nonstop whisper campaign that roared with homophobia. Last July, Breitbart News assaulted Buttigieg’s masculinity by referring to him as a “crybaby” (“Pete Buttigieg slips to just 6% support after crybaby debate performance”).

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Only last month, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who had just been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Donald Trump, said Buttigieg’s sexual orientation could be his Achilles' heel in the general election: “How's this going to look, 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband on stage next to 'Mr. Man' Donald Trump?” Limbaugh added: “America's still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage president."

I’m sorry, “ 'Mr. Man' Donald Trump.” What, real men don’t eat quiche or kiss their husbands?

And then after a 9-year old boy asked Buttigieg at a campaign event to “help me tell the world I’m gay, too,” Dave Daubenmire, described on his own website as “an unashamed, articulate, apologist for the Christian worldview,” said on his radio show: “Fifty years ago, they would have thrown Buttfudge in jail for even bringing it up and talking about it in front of a young kid.”

Yes, he called the candidate “Buttfudge,” alleging that Buttigieg is "contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

With Buttigieg’s run for the president now in the rear view window, I’m left with two visuals of the candidate. One of them is of him with that 9-year-old boy (whose name is Zachary Ro). After the moderator read the question, which ended with a plaintive “I want to be brave like you," Buttigieg responded, “Wow!” while the crowed chanted “Love is love!” reported USA Today’s Maureen Groppe. He then beckoned the young man to the stage, telling him: "I don’t think you need a lot of advice from me on bravery. You seem pretty strong."

This was a moment and a photograph that spoke directly to the historic nature of this candidacy, one generation opening the closet door for another.

"I know that as this campaign ends, there comes disappointment that we won't continue," Buttigieg said Sunday night. "But I hope that everyone who has been part of this in any way knows that the campaign that you have built and the community that you have created is only the beginning of the change that we are going to make together." To that the crowd chanted, “2024, 2024, 2024!”

I began this writing that Buttigieg’s run began with a kiss and ended with a kiss. And Sunday night, just as they had 322 days earlier, the Buttigiegs — Pete and Chasten — kissed in front of the roaring crowd, on live television broadcast around the globe.

Goodbye for now, Mayor Pete. But this is not farewell.

Steven Petrow is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and the author of five books on etiquette. Follow him on Twitter: @StevenPetrow; like him on Facebook at facebook.com/stevenpetrow