Mayor Pete to Local Reporter Who Asks Why No Policy on His Website: We’re a ‘Non-Traditional Campaign’

South Bend, IN Mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg took some polite friendly fire when a local reporter asked him why his campaign website has no policy information, and his response was that “We’re trying to run a non-traditional campaign.”

Kristin Bien, a reporter for South Bend CBS affiliate WSBT, caught up with Buttigieg as he prepared to celebrate Dyngus Day at the South Bend West Side Democratic Club, and after some pleasantries, Bien cut right to the chase.

“Obviously, you’re running for president, you’ve got a website up, but when I go to it, I don’t see yet kind of where Pete Buttigieg stands,” Bien observed.

“When do you expect that to be up?” she asked, and added “Where does Pete Buttigieg stand on the issues?”

“Well, we’ve made it very clear where I stand on the major issues, and we are even putting up a search tool so people will be able to search video based on whatever keyword they care about,” Buttigieg replied.

“We’re trying to run a non-traditional campaign,” he continued, adding “Even though this is going to be highly substantive and specific campaign, we’re not going to inundate people with minutiae of policy before they understand exactly what the big ideas are, the values that motivate our policies and the impacts they are going to have on the ground.”

“We’re going to do a lot of things that are going to have people looking for a traditional, cookie-cutter campaign scratching their heads a little bit,” Buttigieg said, apparently accomplishing that mission in real time. “That’s part of the point of doing something new with somebody different.”

Currently, Mayor Pete’s website features a “Meet Pete” tab, a campaign store, an “Events” tab with no events listed, and a “Donate” tab, but no policy tab, and no search feature.

Watch the clip above, via South Bend’s WSBT.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com