“Okay, not bad. Try to look up a little more when you’re looking at the papers.”
Again. Then the ice-cream shop, and the living room. The spot opened with a shot of me jogging in my neighborhood, and then had all the scenes you would expect in a campaign ad: me with seniors, me with kids, me at a factory. But because this was local politics, I actually knew the seniors, the kids, and the factory—and voters would, too. I thought it was a good commercial, and had raised enough funds to put it all over television for the final days of the race. But there was no way to be sure of its effect; a second poll wasn’t in the budget.
One evening, I was at my parents’ house for a rare family meal, when I glanced at the muted television and saw myself—the same clip of me jogging that we had used, but in black-and-white. I grabbed the remote, turned it up, and heard the dark voice-over. “What is twenty-nine-year-old Pete Buttigieg running from? Maybe it’s the facts!” The ad went on to say I lacked “the real experience for elected office.” The ad had come from the Dvorak campaign. My mother was displeased, but I was delighted; going negative on me was a clear sign that our competition was worried—and that I was now the candidate to beat.
Back at headquarters, nervous volunteers asked how we would respond. By the standards of modern negative television advertising, it was pretty tame stuff. My campaign staff was almost gleeful that we were doing well enough to be worth attacking on television. It meant that our poll was not a fluke, though the ad might soften up our numbers if people found it convincing. But thanks to our poll, I knew what Ryan’s team didn’t: reminding people of my age would only help. Rather than respond in kind, I decided to stick to our plan, focus on the economy, and stay positive. The penalty for negative advertising, I suspected, was greater in a local race where people know each other. In a community like ours, there might even be a political upside to the high road.
EASTER WEEKEND CAME JUST TEN DAYS before Election Day. I was sitting at a passion play at Washington High School when my campaign staffer Isaac Goldberg started looking anxiously at his phone in the seat next to me. He stepped out, then came back to his seat looking shell-shocked and whispered to me that Mike Hamann’s wife had suddenly passed away. She was traveling with family in Paraguay, and experienced a massive hemorrhage after a hike on Good Friday. So, as Easter approached and the campaign was in its final days, Mike and his family were left not only grieving but having to figure out how to get her home to the United States.
Hundreds of us packed the funeral at Holy Cross Church on the Near West Side. As at almost every Catholic funeral in South Bend, we sang from our hymnals the haunting refrain, “Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.” People mingled after the service, exchanging words of admiration and appreciation for Mary’s life and Mike’s commitment to his family. The tragedy had achieved what might otherwise have been impossible: a gathering of hundreds of active community members, just days before the election for mayor, with not a word spoken about the ups and downs of the campaign. With the heat of campaigning cut, at least for that one day, everyone could pause and remember that this was not a fight but a competition, among people who all wanted South Bend to be a good place to live in, for us and for those we loved.
ON EASTER MONDAY, BETTER KNOWN in South Bend as Dyngus Day, the campaign had just one week to go. It is difficult to convey to an outsider the importance of Dyngus Day, funny as it may sound. The holiday originated in Eastern Europe, where it was customary by the thirteenth century for boys to sneak into girls’ homes at dawn and douse them with water as a sign of their affection; the girls would respond by giving the boys eggs, and/or striking them with pussy willow branches. (If you think this is absurd, envision what a European historian eight hundred years from now will think about photos of us celebrating the Resurrection of Christ by placing terrified children on the laps of man-sized Easter bunnies in late twentieth century American shopping malls.)
There’s a lot more to the medieval East European tradition, but it’s taken on a very American life in cities with large Polish and Hungarian populations like Buffalo, Cleveland, and South Bend. The day has traditionally been marked with parties at union halls, social clubs, and bars, serving copious quantities of Polish sausage and beer. Since the early 1900s, this was also an irresistible occasion for meeting voters, and thus became a fixture on the calendar of retail politics in places like South Bend. When Bobby Kennedy came to South Bend for Dyngus Day celebrations in the spring of 1968, it helped pave the way for the first primary victory of his presidential campaign, just a month before its tragic end.
These days, Dyngus Day for politicians begins before dawn, where we help (or attempt to help) boil sausage, noodles, and cabbage in the kitchen of the oldest and largest Polish-American establishment in town, the West Side Democratic & Civic Club. Local TV crews are there with live reports, and if the timing is right they catch the arrival of several hundred pounds of kielbasa from Jaworski’s Market. The most senior politician present, usually me or Senator Donnelly, has the honor of ceremonially signing for the sausage order.
What follows is best described as a politics crawl, each location having its known slot on the rounds of the office-seekers. There’s breakfast at the UAW Hall, then a visit to the Crumstown Conservation Club, where beer is flowing and people are dancing the polka by about nine in the morning. It is also customary to visit the African-American Elks #235 Lodge on Western Avenue, where a “Solidarity Day” party is held that is just like Dyngus Day, but with barbecued ribs and chicken taking the place of the kielbasa and kluski. Keep moving, and eating, and by noon you’re back at the West Side Club for the largest event, complete with a blessing from a Polish priest and some short speeches. Afternoon campaigning is not for the faint of heart; it’s best to stick to churches, and more senior-oriented clubs, where the beer hasn’t flowed quite as liberally.
THIS YEAR, DYNGUS DAY FELL just one week before the primary, and by lunchtime the West Side Club was packed. As the smell of sausages and cabbage wafted to the ceiling, the candidates made our final case. I talked about the need for a fresh start for the city. Ryan Dvorak stressed his experience. Mike Hamann, through a surrogate, thanked everyone for the support for his family and made clear he was still in the race. Barrett Berry, running a distant fourth, spoke of his South Bend roots and time as a staffer in the Clinton administration; the fifth candidate on the ballot had dropped out altogether.
I voted before dawn, in a brightly lit lobby at the Notre Dame basketball stadium, the polling place for my neighborhood. Next came a ritual Election Day breakfast with my parents at Nick’s Patio, and a visit to the Grotto on campus, to light a candle. What followed was as interminable as my last Election Day, but more excruciating because I felt this one was mine to lose. Once again, I had written two speeches, a concession and a victory speech. To blow off steam I went to a park with my friend Nat, who flew in at the urging of my staff to keep me company (and keep me sane), to toss a football around. In the sunlight outside Jefferson School I did another round of interviews on how I felt confident but not complacent, and, with nothing else to do as a candidate, headed back to headquarters to make campaign calls with the others.