I must have stared dumbly at him for a minute, so he clarified that he was awaiting the King of Kings, and therefore not particularly interested in the democratic process.
The road home went through Kokomo, and past those big Chrysler and Delphi plants one more time. I stopped at the ITP2 for a last round of handshakes with the UAW guys before returning to headquarters in South Bend to work on two speeches, one for each outcome, and a bunch of thank-you notes that I would need either way. At seven in the evening, I excused myself to go to Saint James for the All Saints’ Day service, then headed back to the office, where my next-door neighbors had dropped off sandwiches for me and the small team. Finally there was nothing to do but go home and go to bed. At home, I asked myself in my journal: “Are we walking into a buzz saw, or does a phenomenal surprise await?”
At least a buzz saw is quick. But Election Day itself is torture for candidates. You’ve made the arguments, raised the money, and shaken the hands, and there’s not much left to do but tell reporters you’re confi dent of victory and go make phone calls or knock on doors like everyone else. Other than that, you are powerless. In Indiana the polls close at six in the evening, a terrible policy when it comes to voter participation but a small mercy for candidates who find Election Days interminable.
It didn’t take long after that for me to officially find out which one of my two prepared speeches I’d be giving. I had worked harder on the concession speech anyway. By eight p.m. it was clearly over, and I called my opponent to congratulate him. I offered my well-wishes and anything I could do to help the state. Mourdock was gracious, and I was exhausted. Together with volunteers around the state, dedicated interns, and a paid staff that peaked at three people, we had treated this race as though it were the tightest and most closely watched campaign in the country. I had crisscrossed the state for months, generated almost exclusively positive press coverage, made friends in every corner of Indiana, and raised more money than any candidate for this office had in years. And yet we had finished with less than 40 percent of the vote. Technically, I can claim that I led the Democratic downstate ticket, since I got slightly more votes than my running mates for secretary of state and state auditor. But that did little to take the edge off the fact that the very first time I put my name on a ballot for office, fully one million people had voted for the other guy.
Taking the stage at the West Side Democratic Club in South Bend, I faced a hall full of friendly faces, festooned with campaign signs and banners. It was my chance to thank supporters for everything they had done to help. I had been clobbered and so had many other Democratic candidates that night, but the atmosphere was far from grim. Joe Donnelly, our member of Congress, had managed to survive the Republican wave—one of a tiny handful of endangered congressional Democrats to get reelected that night.
After congratulating Joe and talking to everyone who was at the watch party, there suddenly nothing left to do. My team and I finished the night at Club 23, a dive bar named for its address on State Road 23. Unpretentious and friendly, it was the kind of place where your shoes would stick to the floor a little bit, a mostly dark and quiet space brightened by the orange pleather chairs, the dartboard, the pool table, and a few neon signs. Behind the bar, Mo (yes, Mo), the owner and bartender, presided with a sharp gaze and a tight grin. I planted myself at a stool, trying not to look at the TV mounted off to the side where the local news was reviewing the election results.
“How’s it going?” Mo asked.
“I lost.”
“I know,” he answered, as he glanced at the TV and reached for the tap.
ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEATING ME, Mourdock got to work on his true objective: running for Senate in 2012. Using the treasurer’s office as a platform, he challenged the Republican incumbent, Dick Lugar. Lugar, a towering statesman who had had the misfortune of announcing his candidacy for president in 1995 on the same morning as the Oklahoma City bombing, was a moderate best known for brokering strategic nuclear arms reduction treaties with the post-Soviet countries in the aftermath of the Cold War. Helped by his far-right credentials and loyal Tea Party base, Mourdock won the primary, ending Lugar’s thirty-six years of Senate service.
In the general election Mourdock faced Donnelly, who had entered the Senate race after his House district got redrawn unfavorably by the now very Republican state legislature. During the final debate in the last days of the election, Mourdock made another national splash—this time by saying he believed pregnancies resulting from rape were an expression of the will of God. An outcry followed and national Republicans distanced themselves from him, allowing Donnelly to beat the odds and win the seat.
We didn’t know any of that would happen on that November night in 2010, but I did know better than to feel bitter or pessimistic. Buoyed by the support of friends and strangers, I had learned how to leave a comfortable world to take a big risk in defense of the people and ideas I cared about. Even in total defeat, I was proud of the campaign and the people who had been part of it. Old friends had dug deep to send donations. The nine-and eleven-year-old children of the Montgomery County party chair had marched at my side in countless parades, distributing flyers and toting the MEET PETE sign, expecting no reward beyond a visit to Dairy Queen later. My neighbors in the union hall had become friends and allies. Everyone who had been involved became a new kind of community, one that I knew I would be able to turn to in the future. Most of all, I had received a priceless if humbling course of education, a fitting conclusion to a decade of learning.
6
A Fresh Start for South Bend
Ten weeks after my statewide political defeat, on January 21, 2011, Newsweek ran a story called “America’s Dying Cities.” The authors analyzed demographic data, especially declines in the population of young people, to arrive at the conclusion that ten communities in particular epitomized urban decay and were on their way out. Most were in the Midwest; South Bend was number eight. The short commentary concluded with this: “What is particularly troubling for this small city is that the number of young people declined by 2.5% during the previous decade, casting further doubt on whether this city will ever be able to recover.” I had just turned twenty-nine.
South Bend reacted intensely. A Facebook thread from the time captured the range of opinion. “Doesn’t surprise me a bit,” one resident said, summing up a general pessimism among many who had seen employers, jobs, and stores disappear. “The demographic, the workforce, even the economy is all going downhill,” said another. But in the comments and coverage of the time, you could also see the stirrings of a resistance to the doom-and-gloom narrative—especially among young people. On the same thread, a classmate of mine commented: “If you live here, quit complaining and do something to fix this town.”