There hasn’t been a time in my life when I have hesitated to share my opinions about politics. The 2020 Democratic primary contest was not an exception to this rule.



I never hesitated to share the fact that I supported. Because there were so many who sounded smarter than I ever could, I decided to dedicate a bigger share of my energy to amplifying those voices instead of my own.



Now that I’m free of the self-imposed obligation to do what I thought would be most helpful for the campaign, I have the luxury of writing this just for myself.



These words I write are my offering, my contribution to #WhyPete, and my tribute to Pete Buttigieg, a young man who will only grow in stature and historic importance as he grows older.



But these words are for me.



I first became aware of Pete Buttigieg when he ran for Indiana State Treasurer in 2010, when he made some waves that year performing strongly as an upstart outsider.



He fell off my radar after that. If I knew he had been elected mayor of South Bend shortly after the Treasurer’s race, I never made the connection. That is until he came out of the closet. I remember reading an article about his coming out and a line in the piece that mentioned the State Treasurer’s race jogged my memory.



By the time Barack Obama mentioned him as a future leader of the Democratic Party, I recognized Pete’s name in print as belonging to “that young mayor from Indiana.” Still, even though I was peripherally aware of Pete’s candidacy for DNC chair, I simply didn’t pay any attention to his run for that office. If I had, surely, I would have recognized the potential even then of great things ahead.



The truth is, I hadn’t paid attention to much at all about Pete. Other than a vague awareness of his biography and the fact that many thought the was impressive, I knew nothing. I had not read anything he wrote or listened to any of his speeches. I’d never seen him interviewed.



So, when rumors surfaced that he might run for President, I scoffed.



I wrote it off to bored pundits hyping someone more likely to get to lead a federal agency or serve in Congress before he’d have the seasoning for a national campaign.



Just for grins, I followed him on Twitter. Back then I was one of maybe 10,000 who followed him. This guy was definitely not running for President.



When he launched an exploratory committee in 2019, I was irritated that a young and talented Democratic politician would waste the opportunity to move up by waging a vanity campaign for the White House long before he was ready.



I was so irritated that I nearly unfollowed him on Twitter.



But you probably can guess what happened next. That first CNN Townhall in March of 2019. Man was he impressive. I wasn’t even watching it live. I had recorded some stuff and was playing it in the background while I worked. Maybe 10 minutes in I had to stop and restart from the beginning so I could focus.



This guy was amazing. He seemed too good to be true.



Sitting there in my living room it dawned on me that I was watching someone who was competent and bright. He was connecting with me and I believed he would connect with many others. He represented generational change and pragmatism both in equal measure. He was what the country needed: “something completely different.”



Oh, and he happens to be gay.



It was relatively early in my adolescence that I realized both my sexual orientation and my love of politics and elections. Given the long struggle for civil equality that has advanced so rapidly in my lifetime, I doubt that it is a coincidence that the two aspects of my identity are intertwined along so many axes.



In Pete I found a leader who fulfilled my desire for a candidate who spoke to my inner-Sorkin fan, but also a candidate who fulfilled my desire to be represented at the highest level of politics.



And this, I suppose, is where all my efforts to write a #WhyPete broke down prior to this moment.



I could have written 4,000 words about all the things that made Pete the right candidate without once mentioning his sexual orientation. I could talk about the ways in which he had the right policy approach. I could walk you through the strategic political reasons he was the potential nominee best suited to win in November.

But to be candid, I cannot separate mine and Pete’s shared identity from what the campaign and his candidacy meant to me. I wouldn’t have admitted as much when Pete was running. But these words are for me.



Pete was my candidate because my heart still bears the scars seared into the troubled heart of a 9-year old boy just beginning give a name to that feeling that he is different from the other boys.

Pete was my candidate because I can close my eyes and quickly summon the soul-chilling loneliness of a teenager who thought he might be the only one of his kind that he would ever know.



Pete was my candidate because I remember the self-loathing that slowly festered inside me and beckoned me to walk down the path of self-destructive drug abuse and addiction for nearly 2 decades.



When Pete spoke during the campaign about belonging, he meant it as a message for everyone. But, for me, seeing Pete speak those words, the message was one that crossed through space and time, and was somehow precisely targeted to me at all the moments I needed to hear it.



On the day I watched that CNN Townhall I cried tears of joy. That was something I did with great frequency over the last year.



I’ll confess to you now that, as I write this, my eyes are watering profusely.



I immediately went online and became one of the first 65,000 donors who helped qualify him for the first debates — a badge of pride I’ll wear forever.



I am, of course, very proud to have supported a candidate who was so thoroughly ready for the job. I’m proud to have supported a candidate with a bold vision for the future, brilliantly laid out in hundreds of pages of policy white papers.



To be candid, though, I must say that what drove my passion and made me most excited about the campaign was the sheer joy of imagining what it would have been like to have had someone like Pete in public life when I was a child.

This wasn’t a message that I wanted to be front and center, at least not from me, during the campaign. I didn’t think it would do much to convince anyone who wasn’t already a true believer. But these words are for me.

I’m proud that out in America tonight there are queer kids who know that their lot in life is not to live in secrecy and shame. If only one young person’s life has been made better for seeing Pete’s run — and I promise you the number far exceeds one, then every single moment of this journey has been worth it.