Tag: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Nearly two decades ago, an Indiana high school student won a national award from the John F. Kennedy Library for his essay about a little-known Vermont congressman. Out of more than 600 submissions, the Boston institution picked 18-year-old Pete Buttigieg as the winner of its 2000 Profile in Courage Essay Contest for his piece on then-Rep. Bernie Sanders, which praised the House’s sole Independent member for “giving me an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption.” “I have heard that no sensible young person today would want to give his or her life to public service,” Buttigieg wrote. The 37-year-old is officially exploring a 2020 bid for the White House, amid a crowded field of Democratic candidates that includes Sanders, who is hoping to recapture the energy of his surprisingly successful 2016 campaign. And now, at least in the early stages of the 2020 primary race, Buttigieg is the one riding a wave of unexpected national attention. In his essay, Buttigieg praised Sanders’s “courage” for describing himself as a “socialist,” at a time when most Democrats shied away from even the word “liberal” like “a horrid accusation.” “Even though he has lived through a time in which an admitted socialist could not act in a film, let alone hold a Congressional seat, Sanders is not afraid to be candid about his political persuasion,” he wrote. The high schooler and his family traveled to Boston that May to accept the award, which included a $3,000 prize and was named after President John F. Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage. At the Columbia Point library and museum, Buttigieg met with members of Kennedy’s family, including his daughter Caroline Kennedy and grandson Jack Schlossberg. Looking back on his essay as a presidential candidate, Buttigieg told “Pod Save America” he was fascinated how Sanders “owned” the socialist label and “didn’t seem to care as much about the politics of it.” But he himself doesn’t identify as a socialist — or a democratic socialist, as Sanders does — but as a “progressive” who believes in “democratic capitalism.” “I’ve grown up in a time when you can pretty much tell that there’s tension between capitalism and democracy, and negotiating that tension is probably the biggest challenge for America right now,” Buttigieg, who is expected to officially launch his campaign later this month, told Vox in an interview published last week. As he told “Pod Save America,” Buttigieg also points to Sanders as evidence that “there’s more to working with Republicans than ideological centrism.” However, Buttigieg says his experience as a rural-city mayor (Sanders also served as mayor of Burlington in the 1980s) and profile as a gay, millennial, church-going veteran from the Midwest may help him speak to a broader swath of voters. “I’m glad he’s in the picture,” he said of Sanders in his podcast interview last month.