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569 reviews for:
Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
Pete Buttigieg
4.14 AVERAGE
569 reviews for:
Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
Pete Buttigieg
4.14 AVERAGE
Enjoyed learning more about him, some parts were slow/hard to push through. Still not sure how to pronounce his last name but really admire what he’s done and why he’s done it.
Very much a political memoir, rather than a personal memoir. I already strongly support Buttigieg and this really just solidified it. If you're on the fence about which candidate you want to support and want a deep dive into his political views and how he got them, this is worth a read. If nothing else, the chapter about him and Chasten is worth reading, it legitimately melted my heart.
Mayor Pete is a breath of fresh air. Other reviewers commented that they were hoping to read about his policies since they're not yet outlined on his website. Thankfully, this book does NOT go into policy, per se, but I now have a better idea of who Mayor Pete is and can see examples of him living the values he professes in his speeches. He has a dry humor and the book is not laugh out loud funny, but there are several quips and references that made me chuckle. The descriptions of his deployment were sobering and it was endearing to hear him talk about meeting and marrying his husband. No matter where he ends up in the 2020 presidential race, he's going to make a difference in this world!
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
I initially contributed (a very small amount) to Buttigieg's political campaign, but unfortunately this book solidifies for me that he is not actually ready to be President. I haven't decided who I am voting for in the democratic primary, but it more than likely won't be him. Why? Many reasons, but here's the run down from what I discovered in this book:
- I'll start off with the stupidest reason first: he spends a whole chapter explaining how he goes on regular runs with two other guys and then describes in excruciating detail a pretend run through the city of South Bend. Did you know they have a geese problem in one area? I can tell you all about it, but I'll save you from the tedious boredom of it. This was obvious book filler and it really shows that he didn't have enough details/plans for the content that the book title suggests.
- He clearly suffers from White Man Overconfidence Syndrome. Take a look at his history of running for political offices in order of how they happened: Indiana State Treasurer (lost), South Bend Mayor (won twice), DNC Chair (lost), and now he is running for President of the United States. Because if a man who can't win a state-wide election or the election of his own political party structure shouldn't be President, who should? Um, pretty much anyone else who actually HAS won, that's who. Beto O'Rourke is another example of this attempt to 'lose forward'.
- His service seems more like a political calculation, not based out of a real desire to serve. I am not putting down his service, as his service is more than I have done (which is zero). I am just saying that the service he signed up for seemed specifically designed to be not long and yet at a high profile location. He signed up for the Navy Reserve and then specifically states that he ASKED to go to Afghanistan, where he served for seven months. Coming from a Harvard/Rhodes scholar who majored in politics and then went into politics, it makes me wonder about his motivations.
- He fixates on Mike Pence in this book, who coincidentally was also the recipient of his first (and only) major attack so far while running for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. On it's own, that's not surprising considering they are both from Indiana, except for one small thing: he's quick to bring up that there's a photo of him looking chummy with Pence and then proceeds to deliver a backstory about how he supposedly was actually trying to get him out of a rowdy bar area and into a likely less confrontational eating hall next door. To me, the inclusion of this description of this seemingly random moment and photo, that absolutely no one at the time it happened cared about, screams "I did opposition research on myself and I am trying to get ahead of this bad-looking photo because I plan to go after Pence during my Presidential run". Here's the photo (not included in the book, but I looked it up)
- He spends a lot of time talking about the same things he does on the the campaign trail now, so I won't repeat them. But what is perhaps more interesting is what he doesn't talk about. He doesn't talk about how his support from the African American community dropped in the election for his second term for mayor. He doesn't talk about how his firing of the first AA police chief might have lead to that. He doesn't talk about any actions he did specifically for the AA community except for his '1000 houses in 1000 days' campaign (to tear down or help owners repair derelict or abandoned houses throughout South Bend). Abandoned houses only suppresses the value of all the other homes nearby, a true problem, but random empty lots in established neighborhoods also don't help increase home values either. Where was the plan to help build or develop in these now blank spaces? Where was the outreach to that community beyond the code enforcement increases?
- I reject his whole premise that South Bend can be considered a microcosm of cities across the United States and his successes there can be used as a template to improve things across America. In flyover country where the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs have left towns decimated, sure! But living in a 'coastal elite' state (Florida - ha!), his city's issues are nothing like mine. We have no need for 'smart streets' (aka a way to purposely slow down car traffic in areas so that foot traffic businesses can flourish better; we have tons of tourism here), or 'smart sewers' (this is something about controlling water runoff for melting snow, which we don't have in Florida obviously) or have abandoned housing issues (we have lack of available low-income housing but tons of 400k+ housing being built and sold out all the time) or have unemployment issues (instead we have issues with people having more than one low-paying job in order to afford the aforementioned not-affordable-housing). There is no one-size-fits-all approach that can be used as a 'model' for America. He seems to have a solid grip on some of the issues in his area, but how can that apply as a model to areas quite different to his own? He doesn't really say.
If Buttigieg somehow wins the Democratic nomination, I would not hesitate to vote for him in the November 2020 election. He's intelligent, I think he's coming from a genuine place of wanting to improve things, and I think he's willing and able to learn in the areas he is weak on. But is he my first or even third choice? No. There's too many better qualified candidates in the race and this book did not sway me into viewing him as a stronger contender for the office. It actually did the opposite.
- I'll start off with the stupidest reason first: he spends a whole chapter explaining how he goes on regular runs with two other guys and then describes in excruciating detail a pretend run through the city of South Bend. Did you know they have a geese problem in one area? I can tell you all about it, but I'll save you from the tedious boredom of it. This was obvious book filler and it really shows that he didn't have enough details/plans for the content that the book title suggests.
- He clearly suffers from White Man Overconfidence Syndrome. Take a look at his history of running for political offices in order of how they happened: Indiana State Treasurer (lost), South Bend Mayor (won twice), DNC Chair (lost), and now he is running for President of the United States. Because if a man who can't win a state-wide election or the election of his own political party structure shouldn't be President, who should? Um, pretty much anyone else who actually HAS won, that's who. Beto O'Rourke is another example of this attempt to 'lose forward'.
- His service seems more like a political calculation, not based out of a real desire to serve. I am not putting down his service, as his service is more than I have done (which is zero). I am just saying that the service he signed up for seemed specifically designed to be not long and yet at a high profile location. He signed up for the Navy Reserve and then specifically states that he ASKED to go to Afghanistan, where he served for seven months. Coming from a Harvard/Rhodes scholar who majored in politics and then went into politics, it makes me wonder about his motivations.
- He fixates on Mike Pence in this book, who coincidentally was also the recipient of his first (and only) major attack so far while running for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. On it's own, that's not surprising considering they are both from Indiana, except for one small thing: he's quick to bring up that there's a photo of him looking chummy with Pence and then proceeds to deliver a backstory about how he supposedly was actually trying to get him out of a rowdy bar area and into a likely less confrontational eating hall next door. To me, the inclusion of this description of this seemingly random moment and photo, that absolutely no one at the time it happened cared about, screams "I did opposition research on myself and I am trying to get ahead of this bad-looking photo because I plan to go after Pence during my Presidential run". Here's the photo (not included in the book, but I looked it up)
- He spends a lot of time talking about the same things he does on the the campaign trail now, so I won't repeat them. But what is perhaps more interesting is what he doesn't talk about. He doesn't talk about how his support from the African American community dropped in the election for his second term for mayor. He doesn't talk about how his firing of the first AA police chief might have lead to that. He doesn't talk about any actions he did specifically for the AA community except for his '1000 houses in 1000 days' campaign (to tear down or help owners repair derelict or abandoned houses throughout South Bend). Abandoned houses only suppresses the value of all the other homes nearby, a true problem, but random empty lots in established neighborhoods also don't help increase home values either. Where was the plan to help build or develop in these now blank spaces? Where was the outreach to that community beyond the code enforcement increases?
- I reject his whole premise that South Bend can be considered a microcosm of cities across the United States and his successes there can be used as a template to improve things across America. In flyover country where the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs have left towns decimated, sure! But living in a 'coastal elite' state (Florida - ha!), his city's issues are nothing like mine. We have no need for 'smart streets' (aka a way to purposely slow down car traffic in areas so that foot traffic businesses can flourish better; we have tons of tourism here), or 'smart sewers' (this is something about controlling water runoff for melting snow, which we don't have in Florida obviously) or have abandoned housing issues (we have lack of available low-income housing but tons of 400k+ housing being built and sold out all the time) or have unemployment issues (instead we have issues with people having more than one low-paying job in order to afford the aforementioned not-affordable-housing). There is no one-size-fits-all approach that can be used as a 'model' for America. He seems to have a solid grip on some of the issues in his area, but how can that apply as a model to areas quite different to his own? He doesn't really say.
If Buttigieg somehow wins the Democratic nomination, I would not hesitate to vote for him in the November 2020 election. He's intelligent, I think he's coming from a genuine place of wanting to improve things, and I think he's willing and able to learn in the areas he is weak on. But is he my first or even third choice? No. There's too many better qualified candidates in the race and this book did not sway me into viewing him as a stronger contender for the office. It actually did the opposite.
Pete is brilliant, warm, and thoughtful and reading this book made me like him even more. Love how he understands the Midwest and writes about it in the book.
I love pete but I learned more about him from his husbands book. It was mostly about his role as mayor.
informative
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
There are some passages that you can tell were written by a lit major, but on the whole an easy read, and a good look at local politics/governance. Sometimes the compartmentalization of topics made sense, but other times the narrative jumps around a lot and ends up feeling disjointed.
This was a great book. Not so much a campaign book as a memoir, it touched on Pete's experience as mayor as well as his run for DNC chair. Unlike a lot of other celebrity books, it truly felt like it was in Pete's authentic voice and that he wrote it. I will be recommending this book.