Pete Buttigieg
A message is something that makes sense no matter who you're running against.
I was in high school when Columbine happened.
I think most Americans understand that we deserve to have universal health care, as enjoyed by most citizens in most developed countries.
We need to consider a financial transactions tax. And we need to ask whether the top marginal tax rates are really appropriate, given that the effective tax rates paid by the wealthy are often actually lower than those paid by the rest of us.
I think for those of us who think that our morality is something that needs to be in touch with our religious faith personally, then it's really important to explain that no one party has a monopoly on faith.
I do think, actually, one thing I noticed with Silicon Valley post-Trump is it kind of made them more politically aware, more aware that, like, business and philanthropy alone isn't going to make the world a better place.
You can't just let companies self-regulate, and I've gotta think they get that, too.
Like public surface in general, sewers are unbelievably important. They're so important that we make sure they work basically all of the time. Which is why you never think of them - that's kind of the point.
Tunisians are very friendly.
The background of a mayor of a city of any size is a background of somebody who on one hand is an executive and on the other hand is very close to the ground.
I don't have to go on a tour to find out what's happening in middle America. I just go to Target.
I'm not sure anything makes you an outright good person or bad person - that we're all capable of doing good or bad things. And if you want to know how much good you can do, and how much hurt you can do, just ask somebody you love.
My understanding of my faith is that - through a Christian framework - part of what we are called to do is to lay down our own self-interests, after the model of divinity that comes into this world in the form of Christ and lays down his life. And in order to do that, you have to care about something or someone more than yourself.
Because reading is a way of putting yourself in someone else's experience, especially reading fiction.
The most moving responses I got to my coming out in the first place was people, like teenagers, letting me know that it made their lives easier in some way.
By the way, if you ever watch Prince Harry on a panel or giving a talk, you can tell that as royals go, he's comparatively normal, and I think that's largely because he had a workplace experience with people with radically different social backgrounds.
So, I've learned - as a young Democrat, I've learned to think cautiously before offering advice to Nancy Pelosi.
When I was deployed, I could feel a full spectrum of American power keeping me safe. And yes, that was the armor on my vehicle; yes, it was the armor on my body; but it was also the armor of some level of American moral authority.
I think of myself as a democratic capitalist, although I think the word 'socialism' loses its meaning every time that it is used to describe literally any policy left of far right by the current Republicans.
The force that has come closest across American history to actually ending America was white supremacy. That was the Civil War.
One of the reasons we set up this country, one of the things we celebrate in freedom and democracy of the United States is you can criticize your president. You can criticize the ways in which the country falls short of its values.
When you become a citizen, you are an American and questioning somebody's Americanness because they disagree with you - is about one of the most un-American things I can think of.
Systemic racism is something that diminishes all of us. Of course its worst effects are for its victims, but our entire country is held back through the inequality and the mistrust that it creates.
By the way, conversely, one thing I've learned in my career, beginning when I ran for mayor, is that a lot of older voters are among the most excited about a younger candidate. So, you know, I think somebody of any age can deliver a compelling message.