Pete Buttigieg is currently living an author’s greatest fear: having your college writing unearthed years later and splashed across headlines for the world to see.
Thanks to Pitchfork, the world has discovered an article the presidential candidate wrote for his column in the Harvard Crimson back in 2003, when the current mayor of South Bend, Indiana was a senior at the university.
The column, called “Rock the Vote?” turned an ear to the music of the time, tracing the campus’s shifting musical tastes as a reflection a fraught, post-9/11 climate.
Fortunately for Buttigieg, it’s also not that bad.
Pitchfork provided a thorough analysis of the unearthed piece, noting that, while some of the writing is inevitably “overly earnest” and “dated,” the piece is far from embarrassing, anchored by good writing and a solid thought process.
Ultimately, Pitchfork calls Buttigieg’s politically-charged reflection on popular radio’s shift from The Dave Matthews Band to Eminem “a good window into the storied form of political music writing.”
Buttigieg announced he was entering into the Democratic presidential primary in January, and has since become something of a rising political star. The 37-year-old most recently made headlines for amassing a stunning $7 million fundraising total in the first quarter of his campaign.
The mayor’s college political column isn’t the first piece of writing that has resurfaced from Buttigieg’s past. Back in 2000, the then-high schooler won a national essay contest for a piece praising Bernie Sanders’ running for congress as a socialist.
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