On Sunday, Pete Buttigieg (“Boot-edge-edge” as his campaign is encouraging people to pronounce it) formally announced his candidacy in South Bend, Indiana, where he has served as mayor for eight years. The guy has come out of nowhere to become the young upstart that everyone’s talking about for the 2020 Democratic nomination. He’s a 37-year-old war veteran, former management consultant, and the first millennial to run for President. He’s seen a surge of support since he formed his Presidential exploratory committee towards the beginning of this year as well, placing as high as third in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Anyway, Buttigieg’s team also released a cool “design kit” to allow supporters to use logos to create their own yard signs, banners, etc. They think it’ll be crucial to run the kind of grassroots campaign Buttigieg is building.

On the design kit page, there’s something of a “mood board” with pictures of Pete, his dog, his husband, the Indiana and South Bend flags, and a number of other things. There’s also something of moderate interest for us: a photo of his watch.

It looks to be this Skagen Slim on a brown leather strap, which you can find for just $100 on Skagen’s website (or just $90 on Amazon). We don’t cover Skagen much on this blog, but it’s a company that makes minimalist quartz watches at affordable prices.

Skagen was founded in 1989, but was acquired by Fossil for $237 million in 2012, and operations are now overseen out of Fossil Headquarters in Richardson, Texas. As I’ve written before, Fossil’s owner has found himself in trouble before dishonestly leveraging American nostalgia by labelling products “made in America” to sell Shinola watches, a tactic that’s caught the ire of even the FTC.

A Skagen is a fine choice for a watch for a Presidential candidate — minimal, inoffensive, seemingly free of controversy. We’ve since learned that Pete’s now-husband, Chasten, proposed to him with this watch. As Pete tells it, this was the “equivalent of an engagement ring” for him and his husband. OK, that’s a sweet story, and as we’ve mentioned before, we at Rescapement are big advocates of engagement watches as the male corollary to the traditional female engagement ring.

I wouldn’t expect most candidates to wear anything to flashy, expensive, or gold (then again…). But, I’d love to see a guy like Mayor Pete take a look at our list of the Best American Watches in 2019 and pick something off there. For example, Cameron Weiss, of Weiss Watch Company, is a perfect example of bringing manufacturing jobs to America while at the same time leveraging the internet to build a business and customer base in a way that would not have been possible before the digital age. Some of the other microbrands featured — Oak & Oscar and Martenero, for example — are equally good choices, showing how entrepreneurs can leverage globalization to build unique products and companies that still bring jobs to the U.S.

Presidential candidates must be extremely aware of the optics and message sent by every single thing they wear, say, or do. For example, former President Obama famously wore a Tag Heuer during his time as a Senator, but swapped it out for a low-key watch gifted to him by the Secret Service during his time in the White House. Post-White House, he’s been known to wear a Rolex around town. Same goes for the Timex Ironman Bill Clinton wore, but only during his time in office. Pete finds himself in almost the opposite position: he’s wearing a cheap, battery-powered watch, but it’s marketed by a company (Shinola) that also uses American nostalgia to push an outdated and dishonest ideal of Americana. I’m asking Mayor Peter to think more critically about the message his minimalist, quartz-powered watch is sending to the Rust-Belters in Trump country that he seeks to represent come next November.

Look, Mayor Pete is pitching himself as the guy who can connect with the Rust Belt. But as old jobs continue to hollow out these cities and towns, new types of jobs will have to fill the void. People using their creativity to build small watch companies by leveraging the internet, the global supply chain, and even some American manufacturing are but one example of that.

For more on every Presidential watch ever worn, read Eric Wind’s wonderful article: Your Complete Guide to the Watches of United States Presidents.