Telegraph photo by GEORGE PELLETIER Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg of Indiana speaks to an enthusiastic crowd during a Thursday town hall-style event in Milford.

MILFORD – The most recent New Hampshire Institute of Politics poll shows Pete Buttigieg of Indiana with a 10-point lead in the first-in-the-nation (#FITN) Democratic presidential primary race.

However, not one to take fellow candidates such as Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and others lightly, Buttigieg is back on the New Hampshire campaign trail. The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana energized Milford on Thursday during a standing-room-only town hall-style meeting.

The mayor was introduced by New Hampshire Sen. Shannon Chandley, D-Amherst.

“Walking through the town and learning about your history, it’s great to see how much energy and commitment and joy there is,” Buttigieg said. “We are enjoying our visit through New Hampshire, as we continue to gather with Americans, who I can tell, are taking your extra thumb on the scale that you have, which is a very serious responsibility.”

Buttigieg also leads the polling average for the Iowa caucuses, the nation’s first presidential nominating contest. Even so, former Vice President Joe Biden has kept his edge in surveys of the Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary, the two other key early states.

Thursday, Buttigieg discussed not only what it will take to lead the country, but what it will take to launch into the next era.

“I want to ask you to visualize, as specifically as you can, how it will feel that first day, that the sun comes up over our country, and Donald Trump is no longer the president of the United States,” he said, to the enthusiastic crowd. “Most of us are ready for that day.”

Buttigieg talked about “putting corruption, chaos and tweets in the rearview mirror.” He also spoke of the strain that has been placed on Americans as the nation remains divided.

“We are going to need somebody who can get big things done,” he continued. “Because we’re going to have these crises, that have been crying out for action for years. The sun will also be coming up over a country where kids are now getting active shooter drills before they learn how to read; where we have an economy, that might look good on paper with the Dow Jones going up, and yet more and more Americans find it harder and harder to hold onto what they’ve got, let alone to afford prescription drugs, and college and retirement.”

He said America will need an ambitious president who can unify and not polarize the nation.

“I am running to be the president who can do that,” he said. “And as tall an order as that is, I see a road map for what it’s going to take. It all begins with the values that we share as Americans. We have to think about they really mean.”

Buttigieg didn’t pull any punches, referring to Trump as the “divider in chief,” and said that patriotism is not literally hugging the flag, again, as Trump has done, making a mockery of its symbolism.

He called out Trump’s behavior, as “cheap patriotism.”

“The flag does not belong to one political party,” he said. “We have to look at what it actually means to make good on the idea of loving our country. It starts by remembering that our country is made of people. We are the ones who know that you cannot love your country if you hate half the people in it. We have to do better than that.”

Buttigieg noted the number of people in Washington, D.C. who have stood up, “blowing the whistle on official misconduct to the republic for which it stands. And that deserves to protected and honored and respected.”

“We should have a president who is looked up to, not laughed at, by the leaders of the world,” Buttigieg added.

Coalescence was a recurring theme in Buttigieg’s remarks.

“When I talk about uniting around our love for our country, you can see how these boundaries can bring us together, but they use them to pit us against each other,” he said.

Buttigieg also touched on education, mental health, climate change, tax reform, student voting restrictions, white supremacy (“it’s welcome in the White House) and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits (formerly known as food stamps), as the current administration issued new regulations Wednesday. Under the new requirements, able-bodied people from age 18 to 49 would have to work at least 20 hours a week to qualify for food stamps.

“I cannot help to think to myself,” he shared, “what happened to, ‘I was hungry, and you fed me?'”

The openly gay presidential candidate also hit some popular notes, discussing the freedom to marry whomever you choose, and freedom for women to decide what’s best for their bodies.

“I believe in the name of freedom, that the time has come to step up and deliver Medicare for All who want it,” he said. “You’re not free if you don’t have health care coverage, which is why we have to make sure there’s no such thing as an uninsured American. And I trust you to figure out whether and when you want a public plan – and if you’d rather be on a private plan, that’s all right by me. I trust you to make the right decision for yourself.”

“On issue after issue, we have the opportunity in the name of our American values, to galvanize, not polarize an American majority, ready to act on crises that can’t wait,” he said. “This can’t wait 10 years; this can’t wait four years.”

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