Inexperience is one of Mayor Pete's greatest assets

Rookies always win

Pete Buttigieg.
(Image credit: Illustrated | mactrunk/iStock, JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images, Archiwiz/iStock, yopinco/iStock)

Mayor Pete is having his moment — for the second time in the campaign. Surging to the head of the pack in a recent Iowa poll, and edging out Vice President Joe Biden in last quarter's money race, Buttigieg is staking his claim to being the goldilocks candidate for president who can appeal to both moderates and progressives — not to mention being half the age of the three national poll leaders.

Buttigieg's rise is a clear testament to his substantial political talents. But it has also prompted sputtering disbelief from the many other candidates with vastly more experience who can make similar claims to having found the ideological sweet spot but who have languished in the low single digits in national and most early-state polls. Cory Booker achieved national recognition as the mayor of Newark before becoming New Jersey's junior senator. Steve Bullock was a popular two-term Democratic governor of deep-red Montana. Three-term senator Amy Klobuchar is far more popular in her electorally-crucial Midwestern home state than most national Democrats, and was also rated the most productive senator in a generally gridlocked Congress. The Democrats hardly lack for options if they aren't happy with the front-runners. And if they aren't happy with those alternatives either, there are plenty of other options still eager to jump into the race — as Deval Patrick and Michael Bloomberg made abundantly clear over the past several days. Why on Earth would they choose the mayor of South Bend, Indiana?

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Noah Millman

Noah Millman is a screenwriter and filmmaker, a political columnist and a critic. From 2012 through 2017 he was a senior editor and featured blogger at The American Conservative. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Politico, USA Today, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Modern Age, First Things, and the Jewish Review of Books, among other publications. Noah lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.