Pete Buttigieg visits Turlock. ‘Are we ready to put this chaos behind us?’
Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg rallied a Turlock crowd Friday night behind ousting Donald Trump from the White House.
About 700 people turned out at a Stanislaus County Democratic Party fund-raiser to hear from the man leading in the very early delegate count.
Buttigieg mentioned his Modesto-born mother and his husband back in Indiana during the 20-minute speech at the Assyrian American Civic Club. It was light on policy specifics but clearly aimed at defeating the Republican president in November.
“Are we ready to put this chaos behind us?” Buttigieg said. “Are we ready to put this corruption behind us? Who’s ready to put the tweets behind us? This is our chance, this is our only chance, to get that right.”
The former mayor of South Bend was the first major candidate to visit Stanislaus County in advance of the March 3 primary. California rarely mattered in the nominating process when it voted in June, but that has changed with the unsettled Democratic field of 2020.
Buttigieg narrowly won the Iowa caucuses, which kicked off the process early this month, and was a close second to Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary. California is a far bigger prize, as suggested by the media turnout in Turlock.
Modesto-born mom
Buttigieg, 38, is a Rhodes Scholar and former Navy Reserve officer who was deployed to Afghanistan. He is the first openly gay person to become a major candidate for president. His husband, Chasten, visited the Central Valley Pride Center in Modesto in December.
Buttigieg did not meet with reporters before or after the Turlock speech, so details on the Modesto roots of his mother, Anne Montgomery, were not available. He did say during the speech that his parents met in New Mexico and ended up in Indiana.
The candidate said he would work to make health care affordable, to reform immigration, and to assure that large corporations pay a fair share of taxes. He assailed Trump for favoring the wealthy in economic policy and said he would respect his fellow veterans if elected.
Buttigieg alluded to feeling out of place as a younger gay man but delighted on this night in “bringing Valentine Day greetings from my loving husband in South Bend, Ind.”
Western swing
The candidate visited Turlock on a swing that included a town hall meeting in Sacramento and campaign fundraisers in the Bay Area. Friday’s dinner raised money for Democratic campaigns within the county.
Dale Parkinson of Turlock, one of the attendees, wore a “Pete 2020” button for the occasion but has not settled on a candidate.
“I appreciate that Pete Buttigieg has come to Turlock, and hopefully some of the other candidates will drop by as well,” he said.
Riverbank City Councilman Luis Uribe said he supports Buttigieg because of his stances on immigration, climate change and other issues.
“I’m looking for a president who’s smarter than I am,” Uribe said. “We don’t have one at the moment.”
Sanders was the last major candidate from either party to visit Stanislaus County, just before losing the June 2016 primary to Hillary Clinton.
This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 11:02 PM.
