Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the Democratic primary on Sunday. It was the right time, and he did it for the right reasons. Earlier in the day, he and other Democratic candidates had traveled to Selma, Alabama, for the 55th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, one of the seminal events of the Civil Rights movement. We noticed how friendly Pete and Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren were all being, and wondered if something was up. We are, after all, at a certain point in the primary — it's time to winnow down, and it's time to get up and go if you don't have a path to the nomination. We have to keep our eye on the ball to beat Donald Trump in November, which is just eight months from now. Pete Buttigieg, the young whippersnapper mayor from South Bend, decided to recognize that and be the bigger person, to put the country before his ambitions, and go.

Tom Steyer technically did it first, but he never had anything remotely resembling a path. But for a minute there, it looked like Buttigieg might. He won the Iowa caucuses by the tiniest hair, and he came in a strong second in New Hampshire. For a moment, the delegate leader in the Democratic primary was a 38-year-old gay mayor who kissed his husband onstage. For millions of gay kids, and millions more gay adults who are still — as pretty much everybody is — the child they always were, cloaked in the veneer and trappings of maturity, that was a big deal, whether or not they were personally supporting Pete's candidacy. It mattered that he was there.

Mayor Pete's speech Sunday night was one of the most passionate he's ever delivered. He addressed the historic nature of his campaign, saying it "sent a message to every kid out there wondering if whatever marks them out as different means they are somehow destined to be less than." He noted that every kid like that out there has now seen a "leading American presidential candidate with his husband at his side."

A leading presidential candidate. And he was that.