Actor Kevin Costner, once thought to be an independent, has now endorsed South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg for president despite the mayor’s increasingly clear lack of support among the progressive base.
According to The Hollywood Reporter (THR), the “Field of Dreams” actor fittingly endorsed Buttigieg in Iowa over the weekend at a Sunday rally, during which he praised the mayor for being a “man of his moment.”
“Whether your road leads you to Pete, like mine has, that’s for you to judge,” Costner told the crowd at a high school gymnasium south of Des Moines. “When Pete speaks of unity, it’s the kind of unity I’ve been waiting and hoping to hear about.”
Costner went on to describe Buttigieg as a man who can transcend history in ways that other candidates cannot — although he avoided saying anything specific about Buttigieg’s character or political record beyond high-minded platitudes.
“The strength he describes isn’t the kind that limits compassion in the name of America,” said Costner. “It’s a man who not only understands how the world looks at us, but how history will and how we ought to look at ourselves. And maybe most importantly, I see Pete as a man of his moment and maybe of his time.”
Costner praised the state of Iowa for offering the first salvo in the Democratic Party presidential primary process.
“That power, that awesome responsibility, originates here on the ground in Iowa,” said Costner. “What you do with your vote is put those first seeds in the ground and see what grows next year.”
As noted by THR, Costner previously endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008, although his politics have been more staid than most of his Hollywood colleagues throughout his long career. In the 1980s, he considered himself a friend of Ronald Reagan before switching parties in the early 1990s. He is also an avid supporter of America’s veterans and even performed for them at a Reagan Library event in 2013.
“We understand the sacrifice and probably will never completely understand, but we are with our soldiers,” Costner said at the time.
Earlier this year, without mentioning President Trump by name, Costner expressed dismay over the state of American politics, arguing that our selfishness has transformed the country away from its former greatness.
“The political landscape is unrecognizable to me, and shame on us for being in that spot,” the actor told Variety. “That could change overnight, not because of a vote, but because people say, ‘I want to try to be more than about myself.’ That’s the definition of public service.”
Costner went on to say that the American experiment will always be great, while conceding that it will wane if politics continue down this path.
“This is the greatest experiment in humankind: America,” he said. “This great idea about America still exists, it’s still here. People still want to come here, but we’re not first in hardly anything that matters and we have an inflated idea about how we are. We exaggerate about what we are. We are everything that’s great and we are everything that’s human. And our humanness and our level of selfishness is overtaking our chance to be great.”