By Allan Stein
CORNISH — Democratic candidate for president Peter Buttigieg said Democrats should “talk less” about Donald Trump and talk more about making “a better America” if his party hopes to win in the 2020 election.
Buttigieg said Trump’s power is “the power to change the subject,” and that Democrats tend to “overthink things” and “play it safe.”
“Back to normal isn’t going well,” Buttigieg said before a cheering capacity crowd of over 200 supporters who gathered Saturday outside of the private home of former New Hampshire senator Peter Burling and his wife Jean.
Known as Austin Farm, the sprawling farm has been the campaign stop for at least three Democratic candidates in recent weeks.
At 37, Buttigieg is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and the youngest of his party’s candidates to seek the presidential nomination.
Buttigieg urged a return to America’s “core values,” and said that political will is needed to address important issues such as climate change, affordable health care, and ending America’s wars in the Middle East.
“There is something wrong. There is something deeply wrong” with America, he said. “It calls for us to work together to actually fix it. The choices we make now will shape what the next half century will look like.”
He said that those central values are “not conservative values, but American values, with progressive implications.”
If elected, Buttigieg would be the youngest president in history, and he has made his being openly gay an issue in his campaign. A veteran of the war in Afghanistan, he is a multilingual Harvard graduate and a Rhodes scholar.
Buttigieg said gun violence and the rise of white nationalism are among the greatest threats facing the nation in 2019.
While calling upon reforms to curb gun violence in America, he said “climate disruption is the security threat of our time.”
Regarding health care, Buttigieg said he’d put Medicare on the exchange as a public choice and enable consumers to “vote with their feet” to purchase the health care plan that is best for them.
Rural health care would be one of his top priorities in health care reform, he said.
“For every problem there is a solution if we have the political will to solve the problem,” he said.
Buttigieg said he would push for mental and physical health care parity, and establish a 3-digit national suicide hot line.
His “Douglass Plan” would address “systemic racism” in America and “repair inequality” built into the nation’s early democracy.
Favoring competition in the marketplace, Buttigieg said he would give “predatory health care” insurance companies “one last chance to prove us wrong” before moving to the public plan for health care.
As president, Buttigieg said he would support efforts to strengthen labor unions and address economic inequities. His cabinet would reflect a multitude of religious orientations—not just one faith—and even those with no religion.
“God does not belong to a political party in this country,” he said.
On immigration, he said he would support a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers”– people brought to this country as children who hope to gain citizenship– and resolve the nation’s border problems in one year.
“Where others see immigrants, I see taxpayers,” Buttigieg said.
During a question and answer session, one voter asked the candidate how he would deal with Donald Trump, “the bully.”
Buttigieg said the best way is to focus on the issues that are of most concern to Americans, and winning.
“I’m from Indiana, and I’m gay. I’m not worried about name-calling,” Buttigieg said, drawing applause and cries of “Pete! Pete! Pete!”
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