The Electoral College needs to go, because it's made our society less and less democratic.
Pete Buttigieg
Greatness will come by looking forward - untethered from the politics of the past and anchored by our shared values - and by changing our nation's future.
I just feel more comfortable with my sleeves rolled up.
'Freedom' means a lot to conservatives, but they have such a narrow sense of what it means. They think a lot about freedom from - freedom from government, freedom from regulation - and precious little about freedom to. Freedom to is absolutely something that has to be safeguarded by good government, just as it could be impaired by bad government.
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.
The death penalty has been one of many examples where racial discrimination has played out. You can see it in the simple fact that someone convicted of the same crime is more likely to face the death penalty if they are black.
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.
As the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, I see on a daily basis the impact of politics and policy on my family, neighbors, friends, and residents.
As a consultant at McKinsey, I learned the value of data and the ability to shape that information into an answer.
When I think about where most of Scripture points me, it is toward defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works.
In local government, it's very clear to your customers - your citizens - whether or not you're delivering. Either that pothole gets filled in, or it doesn't. The results are very much on display, and that creates a very healthy pressure to innovate.
As Democrats and progressives look to the future, we should remember our most essential values.
An election is supposed to be about our whole country - we can't just concentrate on those areas where people, for the most part, already agree with us.
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.
Like anyone who follows politics, I am sometimes mesmerized by the twisted and relentless drama playing out in Washington. But I also know about the price of distraction - the consequences of our attention being diverted from how politics affects daily life.
We need to intentionally invest in health, in home ownership, in entrepreneurship, in access to democracy, in economic empowerment. If we don't do these things, we shouldn't be surprised that racial inequality persists because inequalities compound.
I am not skilled enough or energetic enough to craft a persona. I just have to be who I am and hope people like it.
My surname, Buttigieg (Boot-edge-edge), is very common in my father's country of origin, the tiny island of Malta, and nowhere else.
There's this romantic idea that's built up around war. But the pragmatic view is there are tons of people of my generation who have lost their lives, lost their marriages, or lost their health as a consequence of being sent to wars which could have been avoided.
In 'Palaces for the People,' Eric Klinenberg offers a new perspective on what people and places have to do with each other, by looking at the social side of our physical spaces.
The center of gravity of the American people is way to the left of the center of gravity of Congress and, in many ways, to the left of the national Democratic Party.
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.
What's worse: a president who is very faithful to an ideology that you find extreme, or a president who is very cynical and appears to have no ideology at all? Neither one of those things is great.
In many ways, Trump appeals to people's smallness, their fears, whatever part of them wants to look backward.
Our right to practice our faith freely is respected up to the point where doing so involves harming others.
The greatest nation in the world should not have much to fear from a family, especially children, fleeing violence. More importantly, children fleeing violence ought to have nothing to fear from the greatest country in the world.
We can't look for greatness in the past.
Physically robust infrastructure is not enough if it fails to foster a healthy community; ultimately, all infrastructure is social.
Our neighborhoods are safer when there is trust between communities and the police who are in charge of protecting them.
I think that policy matters. I'm a policy guy.
Building a wall won't solve our border security challenges.
Being gay isn't something you choose, but you do face choices about whether and how to discuss it.
You can't just let companies self-regulate, and I've gotta think they get that, too.
As a mayor, my instinct is to really think about how to get something done and not to make the promise unless you have some view of the pathway. You don't have to have it all figured out, but you have to have a pathway there.
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.
Being the mayor of your hometown is the best job in America, partly because it's relatively nonpartisan - we focus on results, not ideology.
The world is changing, but it is not changing on its own.
We've got to find a way to use our identities to reach other people.
You can't understand America without understanding the Puritans. In many ways, we're still living out their legacy in ways that are good and bad.
I was well into adulthood before I was prepared to acknowledge the simple fact that I am gay. It took years of struggle and growth for me to recognize that it's just a fact of life, like having brown hair, and part of who I am.
So much of what Christ's teachings are about have to do with the way that we take care of the least among 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.
You're not free if you can't marry the person you love because a county clerk is imposing his or her interpretation of religion on you.
Presidents going live from the Oval Office have used that platform to inform the American public, and also to do one of the most important parts of their job: to inspire the best in us.
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 get the urge people will have after Trump. 'Look at the chaos and the exhaustion: Wouldn't it be better to go back to something more stable with somebody we know?' But there's no going back to a pre-Trump universe. We can't be saying the system will be fine again just like it was. Because that's not true; it wasn't fine.
A lot of these so-called left positions are actually centrist by the standards of the American people, just not by members of the American Congress.
Safety and security are the most basic job of government. I understand that - both as a mayor who works every day to secure public safety and reduce crime, and also as someone who deployed in uniform to Afghanistan because I believed joining the military was part of my duty to help keep my country safe.
I think there's an opportunity hopefully for religion to be not so much used as a cudgel but invoked as a way of calling us to higher values.
I hope that teachings about inclusion and love win out over what I personally consider to be a handful of scriptures that reflect the moral expectations of the era in which they were recorded.
