Gary Peters to the rescue. Just as my quite considerable appetite for mocking the pretensions and aspirations of Pete Buttigieg — former mayor of South Bend (Indiana’s fourth-largest city), then somehow after that a plausible Democratic presidential nominee, then somehow after that Biden’s secretary of transportation — was coming perilously close to being satisfied, Peters, the senior Democratic senator for the state of Michigan, announced that he will not run for reelection in 2026.

(A brief pause for the few outside Michigan, and perhaps the few in it, who even knew Peters, an improbably nondescript political figure, was in the Senate. Okay: Brief pause over.)

Within minutes of news breaking of Peters’s announcement, news also broke that Buttigieg was taking a “serious look” at running for the seat. Buttigieg, who grew up in and spent much of his professional life as a Hoosier, moved northward during the Biden administration. There had been talk of his running for governor of Michigan, despite his thus far unconvincing attempt to present himself as a true Michigander. Though he still has work to do on that front, running for Senate instead would have the advantage, for Buttigieg, of not just keeping him politically relevant and keeping alive his desire that we appreciate him more in the fullness of time. It would also absolve him of the on-hand, often rigorous, and frequently non-spotlight responsibilities of a governor. In the grandstanding- and showboating-friendly Senate, Buttigieg could give all the McKinsey PowerPoints he wanted. And who knows: Maybe they’d even be more memorable than whatever Peters has done in the Senate.