SOUTH BEND, Indiana – Pete Buttigieg knows he’s having a special moment, one with an “out-of-body experience” feel to it.

“This is probably the only time in American history when a 37-year-old, Midwestern mayor running for president would be taken seriously,” said that mayor. “There’re probably some reasons for that. And only some of those reasons have to do with me.”

It’s Election Day in South Bend. And while Buttigieg (pronounced Boot-edge-edge) rightly worries “democracy is backsliding” in Donald Trump’s America, on this day, in this city, it’s functioning just fine.

By nightfall, Democratic voters will have chosen Buttigieg’s longtime friend and high school classmate James Mueller as his likely successor as mayor.

A few hours earlier, I spent a half hour with the present mayor in his national campaign headquarters on the third floor of a downtown office building.

Two floors below is the Chicory Café, a street-level coffee shop teeming with students and campaign volunteers. Just to the north are the Notre Dame University and Saint Mary’s College campuses.

Buttigieg doesn’t try to overwhelm you with his brilliance. He seems confident, unflappable, serious, with a dash or two of charisma. Most importantly, in ways big and small, Buttigieg is the polar opposite of the man he wants to replace as president.

He is young, thoughtful and smart, probably the most intellectually gifted candidate in the race. He is a veteran who served his country in Afghanistan. He speaks in complete and understandable sentences. He is a church-going gay man. He seems to care about people other than himself.

Buttigieg doesn’t wear his resume - Harvard, Rhodes Scholar, Navy Reserve lieutenant, fluent in seven languages – on his sleeve. Nor does he discount it is part of his appeal.

“In a moment like this, I think people are looking for a president who is capable; not just one who is intelligent, but who is intellectually curious. But remember, a lot of very intelligent people have led people into some big blunders.”

South Bend, like every other big city in the de-industrialized, upper Midwest, faces daunting challenges. As mayor for more than seven years, Buttigieg has been singled out for an innovative approach to job creation and he has used technology to build a waste-water-treatment system he touts as the world’s most modern.

“I may be lucky that I was not born in time to see the factories in their glory days here in South Bend,” he said. “Maybe if I’d seen that, I’d think of nothing else but getting them back to the way we were. But since I only saw them as ruins, my thinking has been about what comes next.”

Buttigieg is is fond of saying his campaign has gone “from adorable to plausible to formidable.”

Indeed, a recent poll by The Hill showed Buttigieg fifth in what is now a 21-candidate race for the Democratic presidential nomination, but far behind frontrunner and former Vice President Joe Biden.

“It’s a long way between formidable and inevitable,” he said. “It feels good to draw big crowds and have a lot of attention. But it’s a long way from having a commanding majority.”

With generational tensions roiling the Democratic Party, Buttigieg is careful not to suggest Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders are too old to be president.

“I don’t think it’s my place to say whether any of my competitors should run. I do think there’s a strong appetite for generational change. And that’s not only true of young voters. I am finding it particularly true of voters who are my parents’ age.”

Trump is obsessed by the past. Instead of building a nation for our grandchildren, he romanticizes for the America of our grandparents.

“They’ve (Republicans) set up an impossible promise – that we can meet our challenges by turning back the clock,” said Buttigieg. “One of the things that’s most inspiring about those who came before us is that they were focused on the future. That’s the thing we ought to emulate. Not their particular economic arrangements. And certainly not their racial and social attitudes.”

Buttigieg believes the way to run against Trump would be to ignore his grade-school bullying in favor of a conversation with voters about structural changes to democracy and ways to improve their lives with higher wages, better health care and building a skilled workforce.

“In 2016, we were so shocked about who the nominee was we found it hard to talk about anything else. And I think we allowed our message to be far too much about him.”

Already, Buttigieg’s lifestyle is being targeted with the vile and despicable language so often employed by some religious extremists. There are few bigger hypocrites than the intolerant fundamentalist leaders who support this amoral and immoral president. Imagine the venom they would spew across the battleground state map in a Buttigieg-Trump matchup.

“Of course it’s unpleasant,” he said of the gay bashing. “And it’s strange when people protest not over your ideas, but over your existence. My type of mental equipment for dealing with that is the same that keeps me humble when people say absurdly nice or inflated things about my intellect.

"The most important thing to remember is this campaign is not about me. It’s about everyday life in America and how I might be able to make it better if I get elected instead of the other guy.”

Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer’s editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

To reach Brent Larkin: blarkin@cleveland.com

Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the “Follow” option at the top of the comments, and look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com.