- Watching March Madness reminds me:

Zion Williamson and I are similarly athletic.

What's so funny?

He's a skinny guy with a funny name,

and he's the hottest name in Democratic politics.

Sounds like I'm describing this guy, right?

It's actually this guy.

That guy is Pete Buttigieg.

That's B-U-T-T-I-G-I-E-G.

Boom, nailed it; ding! (bell dinging)

Boot-edge-edge: That's how you say it, except fast,

like it says on the t-shirts his campaign sells.

They really do, look!

Honestly, just call him "Mayor Pete."

It's a lot easier, rolls off the tongue.

When Mayor Pete started running for president in early-2019,

people, they weren't calling him much of anything

because, well, they had no idea who he was.

Unlike boldfaced names like Beto O'Rourke

or Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden,

Mayor Pete was considered a very minor player

in the very crowded 2020 sweepstakes.

After all, he is young, 37 years old,

relatively inexperienced politically,

his highest office is his current one,

mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and has a last name

that is harder to pronounce than Cillizza.

Cillizza.

Except that politics is an unpredictable business

and voters have a tendency of sometimes surprising you.

The Buttigieg bump, (bell dinging)

again, began around early-March

when Mayor Pete did a town hall that was hosted by CNN.

I know, self-serving, but accurate,

at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

The mayor got the sort of exposure

he hadn't been able to generate to that point,

and he honestly nailed it.

- I have more years of government experience under my belt

than the president.

(audience laughing)

(audience applauding)

That's a low bar, I know that.

(audience laughing)

I also got more years of executive government experience

under my belt than the vice president

and more military experience than anybody

to walk into that office on day one since George H.W. Bush.

So, I get that I'm the young guy in the conversation,

but I would say experience is what qualifies me

to have a seat at this table.

- He was funny, smart, and above all

spoke and seemed like a normal person.

Suddenly, Buttigieg was everywhere.

- Where are you on the ideological spectrum?

- I consider myself a pretty strong progressive,

but I also don't consider the left-center spectrum

to be the most useful way to look at our politics right now

because I think it's gotten jumbled up,

both by the current president and by the pace of change.

- And after that appearance, Joe Scarborough said

that there hadn't been so much reaction

to a guest on his show since, well, this guy.

A clip of Buttigieg speaking Norwegian,

he's conversant, because of course he is,

with a reporter from Norway then went viral.

- (speaking foreign language)

- (speaking foreign language)

- (speaking foreign language)

- Buttigieg's campaign announced

that he had already secured the 65,000 donors that he needed

to qualify for the first Democratic presidential debate

in June in Miami.

He announced in late-March

that he was trying to raise $500,000 more for his campaign

in the week or so before the end

of that fundraising quarter.

He raised that amount in 24 hours.

All told, Buttigieg announced he had raised $7 million

in roughly two months as a candidate,

a total that, yes, is going to put him

behind the likes of Sanders and O'Rourke,

but will put him way in front of where he

and everyone else thought he would be

at this point in the race.

This right now is Mayor Pete's moment.

Every candidate running for president wants one.

Not all get one.

The question going forward is whether Buttigieg's moment

is like that time when Herman Cain led the 2020 GOP field,

nine-nine-nine, baby,

or more like when that other skinny guy with the funny name

started surging in the 2008 Democratic race

and really never stopped.

There's reason to believe

Buttigieg will last beyond this current 15 minutes of fame,

and the biggest reason for that is, well, the mayor himself.

- Why are you only showing us

the positive things about Pete Buttigieg?

Because that's all we could find,

all right?! (audience laughing)

No, I'm being serious.

There's no dirt on this guy, like nothing.

- Remember that presidential races, especially in primaries,

are as much about personality and backstory

as they are about policy.

That's mostly because the candidates

running for a party's presidential nomination

tend to agree about the broad policy solutions

needed to address things like immigration

or health care or the economy.

The way that you stand out in a field

where everyone has very similar policy plans

is by the force of your life story

and the way in which you tell that life story.

And Buttigieg, though he's only 37 years old,

has a hell of a story to tell.

He's a Harvard grad, a Rhodes scholar,

he was deployed in Afghanistan for seven months in 2014,

and was a Naval Reservist until 2017.

He was elected mayor of his hometown at age 29.

He is both gay and married.

In short, there's lots of there there

when it comes to Mayor Pete.

His surge has been fueled less by some catchy slogan

than by a genuine excitement among Democratic primary voters

about his personal story and candidacy.

Plus, the momentum and money

Buttigieg is gathering right now

will help him in real tangible ways.

His campaign says it plans to double his staff

in the coming weeks

and they are working on building bigger organizations

in places like Iowa and New Hampshire,

where Mayor Pete will have to show well

to have any chance at winning the nomination.

Now, before we get too far ahead of ourselves,

and I just said, "Any chance of winning the nomination,"

it is worth remembering this: No one, absolutely no one,

will be voting until late-January or early-February 2020,

which is still a very long time from now.

Mayor Pete may be the flavor of this month,

but he's unlikely to be the only lesser-known candidate

who experiences a bit of a boom between now and next year.

Still, an early Buttigieg bump

is better than no bump at all.

And lots of Mayor Pete's fellow 2020 candidates

would love to have the sort of run he's been on recently.

Campaigns for president are about creating opportunities,

seizing them, and never letting go.

Pete Buttigieg has already accomplished

the first two parts of that equation

in just two months as a candidate.

It's the never-letting-go bit that he's still got to master.

And that is The Po!nt.

We make new Po!nt episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

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