Pete Buttigieg's feud with Mike Pence is the cleverest political move either have made in a long time

Born and raised in the same state, these two men couldn’t be more different, from politics to age and even the gender of their spouses. And they want you to know that

Pete Buttigieg has finally announced that he’s running for president. Since forming his presidential exploratory committee earlier this year, the mayor from South Bend, Indiana has created major buzz – accompanied by substantial donations. But now, joined on stage by his husband Chasten, Buttigieg has formally entered the race. Launching his campaign, he told supporters: “You and I have the chance to usher in a new American spring.”

Despite being a relative newbie to national-level politics — and one from the rust belt, to boot — Buttigieg has already proved himself to be a shrewd political operator. He seems to understand that much of campaigning on the big stage is about knowing which fights to pick – the political battles that you’re likely to win that cast you in a positive light.

Buttigieg’s early dispute with vice president Mike Pence is a perfect example. The mayor has been engaging in a war of words with the vice president in recent weeks over their starkly different interpretations of Christianity and homosexuality.

Buttigieg, a Christian himself, first said that if Pence has a problem with his sexual orientation, then his problem is with God. He said: "That’s the thing that I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. That if you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”

Pence, a man beloved by evangelical Christians on the American right, has a history of opposing LGBT+ discrimination protections and same-sex marriage. He has also been blamed for allowing an HIV outbreak to spread in Indiana while he was the state’s governor and he has previously supported the widely debunked practice of gay “conversion therapy”. Recently Pence’s wife Karen faced criticism for taking a teaching job at a religious school that bans openly LGBT+ students and teachers.

This feud plays well for Buttigieg because it allows him to position himself as a different type of Christian to Pence. The young mayor has spoken openly about why America’s right should not have a monopoly on Christian values. He cites generosity towards the poor as Christian teachings which align more closely with left-wing policies than those of his right-wing opponents.

This message is winning him fans. USA Today wrote that “Mayor Pete Buttigieg's countercultural approach to Christianity is what America needs now.” The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin said that “faith, not sexual orientation, is what’s most interesting about Buttigieg.”

Cleverly, Buttigieg’s feud with Pence highlights his own Christianity – his most conventional characteristic – while also positioning his modern approach to it as a key differentiator. His homosexuality – his most unconventional characteristic in the political arena – is also underlined, allowing him to present as both radical and conventional at the same time.

Though what makes this feud even more fascinating is the fact that Pence also benefits from it. Responding to the young mayor’s comments, Pence said that Buttigieg was bringing “attacks” on his faith. His response echoes his response to criticism of his wife’s new job as “deeply offensive”. This a major play to the conservative gallery, who see gay people demanding tolerance from them as a form of bigotry and Democrats supporting such views as an attempt to police their minds.

Buttigieg then pivoted the issue onto policy, specifically LGBT+ discrimination protections, telling Ellen: “I don’t have a problem with religion. I’m religious, too. I have a problem with religion being used as a justification to harm people and especially in the LGBTQ community.”

The fact that these two men, both from Indiana, have decided to put faith on the election frontline is yet another symptom of the culture war that currently rages throughout American society. Born and raised in the same state, these two men couldn’t be more different, from politics to age and even the gender of their spouses. Yet religion – the one thing they appeared to have in common – has become a battleground.

This is precisely how they want it to be. It benefits both to cast themselves as the polar opposite to each other on the big stage. One hopes to represent a vision for a new America of liberal values where faith influences progressive socio-economic policies, while another claims to defend the supposed values of the past with a worldview underpinned by economic and social conservatism.

Launching his campaign, Buttigieg said: “The horror show in Washington is mesmerizing. It’s all-consuming. But starting today, we’re going to change the channel.”

Ironically Trump, the man behind the horror show whose job Buttigieg is after, is sickeningly good at picking his own feuds. Trump has a disturbing ability to identify people or organisations his core base of supporters will loathe and then to turn them into public enemy number one. He positions himself as the only one who can defeat them, and gets supporters to chant to that effect at rallies. It’s a strategy which is working.

At an extremely early stage in the campaign, Buttigieg has made interventions into topical disputes in order to ingratiate himself with supporters – from Trump’s tweets against Ilhan Omar to the actions of the Israeli government. Taking public stances during such high-profile rows has so far been an effective method for casting himself as the “off switch” to Trump’s horror show. But his fight with Pence is his first instigation of a feud of his own (though it’s likely Buttigieg would argue Pence actually threw the first metaphorical punch).

We know there’s no perfect politician, president or political campaign. But in Buttigieg vs Pence we’ve found such a thing as the perfect feud. Don’t expect this mutually beneficial arrangement to end any time soon. If this intelligent concoction is a sign of things to come, then we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Buttigieg.