Buttegieg indeed sounds impressive.
But are we really in the world where being a mayor is enough to become President? A man of his heft ought to demonstrate he can win state-wide in Wisconsin, become a governor or Senator, then build from there.
To Buttigieg's point which he's made several times, are you saying that "marinating in DC" is a better alternative? I agree (and he has as well), that state government would also be a good path to presidency, but as someone else in this thread mentioned, he tried running for state office (treasurer), but lost to a republican which is predictable for a red state like Indiana, so his options are limited there.
I am younger than Buttigieg by only several years, but I look up to him not for running for president, but what he has done prior to that. I'd trust him over most of those in congress at the moment. I am starting to believe that being POTUS has just as much to do with your abilities and your temperament, as it does experience...your ability to keep calm and rational under pressure, to be a moderator between the different factions, to not know everything but to know enough to know who best to consult with. Experience is only valuable in the sense that it can hone abilities that are already there...it can also make someone without ability for things like empathy, decision-making, cooperation, etc...just knowledgeable enough to be stupid-dangerous.
This guy is a veteran and has not faltered once on questions regarding international conflict and American security. He's a mayor of a city, and has a better eye on how people on the ground live, even more than most of those people on the ground because he intimately knows the direct behind-the-scene consequences a community faces based on decisions from the federal level (as well as personally, like his right to marry, as a gay person). He is a Democrat mayor of a city in a red state, therefore showing he has the ability to cross the aisle. He is not merely an intellectual, he is intellectually curious...something IMO which is the most important aspect of a position like POTUS in which NOBODY will be prepared on day one, and a position in which "learning on the job" is a necessity for success.
I liked Obama, and I was excited for him. He was a good president and very smart, but not progressive enough which was fine a decade ago, but the "pace of change" Buttigieg talks about frequently, is getting faster and it's time for progressives to take the ball to usher us into new territory. He's asking questions that I've never even thought to ask because that's just how it always was. He's asking questions that people who have dedicated their entire lives to "raising in the ranks", possibly just for the purpose of someday running for the highest office, are too scared to ask because they have invested and benefited from not rocking the boat. And they've had longer and more exposure to being institutionalized by an organization that is out of touch which the average American citizen, which is how we got Trump.
I find it ironic that many of the people making decisions in Washington, work and spend much of their time in a region in which it's residents do not have representation; I can only imagine that it insulates them further from the impact of their decisions or lack thereof. I want someone who has lived with those decisions in their work (mayor of a city), in their government service (military), and in their personal life (right to marry the person they love). As a "millennial" I strongly feel that there is no urgency in our government to improve the quality of American lives today and certainly not for tomorrow. Why would they? They have spent their lives with the goal of being in power and all of their energy is going into holding onto that power, and fighting with others trying to do the same. So no, I don't really want someone who treats public service as a means to an end.
In Buttigieg's words "Democrats can't take it back to the 90's anymore than Republicans can take us back to the 50's". The status quo stopped working in 2016, and we can't go back to that, we can only look ahead.