To meet a hero is pretty special. To meet two heroes in a single day is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So when I woke up at 4am last Sunday, I could barely contain my excitement for the day which lay ahead. I was heading to see Pete Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard lay out their visions for the future of the US, and the world, in two separate Town Halls in New Hampshire.

You probably know that politics is my biggest obsession. I am fascinated by the way that people develop the characters of their public persona and convince others to follow them into a vision for the future. Politics is what determines the future of history, and almost everything we take for granted today. And in recent years (or months in the case of the latter), I have been impressed and obsessed with Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg. In Tulsi, I saw a trailblazer for my people as the first Hindu elected to Congress. The fact that she was a young, surfing, female, minority veteran who entered politics to campaign for environmental issues make her even more spectacular in my mind. On many foreign policy issues, she displayed the same realist views of the world that I hold. In Pete, I saw the perfect embodiment of an identikit progressive politician. A young, gay Midwesterner who just happened to go to Harvard AND Oxford (on a Rhodes Scholarship), with careers in the military and management consulting, before entering small town politics at the coalface. The only way that he could be more ‘perfect’, in my eyes, was if that consulting career had been at BCG. I also loved his pragmatism and belief that politics needed to be communicated in stories and emotions, rather than facts.

Finding myself in the front rows at both Town Halls, I was blown away by each of the candidates. But I was also fascinated by the stark differences and similarities between the two events.

A winning campaign vs. a losing campaign

The varying fortunes of both campaigns was clearly evident. Pete Buttigieg’s lead in the polls was obvious long before the Town Hall even started. Although I was one of the first people to arrive and get in line (almost 1 hour 45 mins before the event), the crowd quickly started forming behind me and was at least 100 people strong with an hour to go until doors opened. When the doors finally opened, I had to run to get a front row standing spot as the masses poured in. The room ended up being packed with a few hundred people and the atmosphere was ecstatic. I hadn’t seen anything like it since I saw AOC host a Town Hall in Queens in August 2017, a few months before she was elected to Congress.

Tulsi’s event was much less populated. Having reached the event barely 20 minutes before it started, I basically had my pick of the seats. There was no standing area (because it wasn’t needed) and people were still trickling in during the opening act to take the many seats that remained empty. By the time Tulsi walked on to speak, the room was full but not sardine-can packed like Pete’s Town Hall. Instead, the atmosphere was much more subdued but pleasantly intimate. It felt more like a quiet evening at the library instead of a Rockstar celebrating their ascendancy.

Storytelling vs. policies and ideas

Much has been said about Pete’s focus on storytelling and seeing him in action was truly breathtaking. Pete Buttigieg is the single best storyteller that I have ever seen. He began by asking the crowd to imagine the day after Trump left the White House, and to picture the sun rising on that day over New Hampshire (of course!) and the United States. And to imagine, with every fiber of your being, what that would feel like. And with this evocative image of a sunrise in everyone’s mind (which looked like this for me), he launched into his vision for America. Every single part of his speech tied into the sunrise metaphor, which smartly brings on connotations of renewal, rebirth, and Obama. He talked about his early journeys in New Hampshire. He talked about what he would do for people. And he talked about what it would take to unite this country. Out of all the politicians that I have seen speak, none has had a better constructed speech than Pete. Even during the moderated Q&A, Pete avoided policy detail and chose to answer in broad visions and stories that were fun but not substantial. The most powerful part of the Town Hall was the way that he finished. The last question he answered was from an 8 year old girl about why he decided to be President. For every other question, Pete would answer by wandering around the stage and talking to the crowd. But for this question, he leaned over the stage and spoke his answer directly to the girl that had submitted the question. The audience and I were mesmerized. I laughed. I cheered. I shed tears.

Tulsi’s Town Hall was a completely different beast. As a candidate trying to claw her way to survival, Tulsi began by saying that she had a few things to say but wanted to open up to questions as much as possible. Her self-positioning as the peace (anti-war) candidate meant that her speech started with the recent issues in Iran, which she used to outline her point of view – that “foreign policy is domestic policy”. What followed from that was a well structured speech of the variety that I have given many times in my life (and which politicians are almost obliged to do). She outlined her vision for America and listed out the reasons why she would make the best candidate for President (which, to be honest, I can’t really remember). The Q&A was much more factual and detailed than anything that Pete was asked, and included some scathing questions around her ties to Modi and the BJP (completely unfair and bigoted, as she thankfully called out) as well as her low polling numbers (fair). The lack of moderation and clear rules up-front meant that people asked multiple questions and she spent a lot of time answering individual questions. The benefit of this was that it was a much more substantial discussion, and I got to learn a lot more about who Tulsi was and what she stood for. This was clearly significant given the number of self-professed Conservatives and former Trump voters who were in the audience and wanted to vote for a democrat, her, for the first time in their lives. But I wonder whether such fact based discussions truly win hearts and minds at scale.

Both talked about clean water

Of the incalculable volumes of political media that I have consumed over the years, one thing that really stood out for me was Frank Luntz’s suggestion that a Presidential candidate campaigning in a state (that I can’t remember) should make ‘deer collisons’ their number one priority. The idea behind this was that focusing on a super niche, emotive issue would give a person a beachhead that they could focus on. This focus would draw attention away from their other candidates, who couldn’t possibly spend the same time and effort as you on that niche issue, and help grow your own profile. Eventually, when you were well known enough, you could then diversify into other adjacent issues. This is literally the same theory that we were taught in intro strategy during my MBA, and which my excellent strategy professor recommended we apply to our own lives. It’s also what Donald Trump did, focusing on one issue (birtherism) before slowly expanding to adjacent issues (walls, Muslims coming over the borders). Even in the debates, Trump tore down one candidate at a time. Focus is everything.

So when I hear politicians speak, I love to look out for what ‘deer’ they are going to talk about. In the richest country that has ever existed in history, it turns out that this ‘deer’ issue is clean water. Apparently, some parts of New Hampshire have chemicals in the water that make it toxic to drink. That both candidates talked about it, and in surprising detail, really outlined the way that local issues would be used to frame the broad topics they wanted to discuss. The discussion about clean water also showed how tangential issues (such as personal health and infrastructure) could be used to promote liberal environmental issues in a way that would be palatable towards the skeptics of the world. It’s a sign of things to come in the next year of campaigning.

Both were incredibly warm in person

When Mayor Pete came around to where I was standing in the front row, I shook his hand and told him that I was from Australia and that he was the President that the world needed. After obliging my request for a selfie, he thanked me for coming and continued walking around the front row to meet other people. In that moment, he did something that really affected me. Because after stepping away, he stopped for a second turned around and walked a couple of steps back to me. And, looking me straight in the eyes, he said “Hey. I know it’s tough out there [Australia] and I really appreciate you coming out”. Given what Australia is going through, and that I was a non-voter standing amongst a sea of early voters screaming in adoration, it really meant a lot for him to express his empathy and humanity in such a meaningful way.

Tulsi’s event finished with a much more intimate selfie line. When I shook her hand, I told her that I had been following her career from before she was elected to Congress and that she was a beacon of inspiration for me and other Hindus around the world. I told her that she was one of the reasons why I wanted to run for office in the future and that what she had done for our people was beyond measure. She thanked me for my kind words, told me that we really did need more of our people to run for office, and wished me good luck for my future. I was struck by the love that she showed me and every other person who stood in that line, waiting to meet her (including the now-former Trump voter ahead of me in the line). One of her volunteers also gave out macadamia fudge that Tulsi’s mother had made, the same type of fudge that Tulsi distributed to every member of congress (and their staff) after she was elected.

It was a sweet finish to a wonderful day.