The Pnyx: On Democratic candidates

Michael McShane
News Editor

As if the Democratic Primary couldn’t get more complicated – we have more contenders for the nomination.

Former Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick has added his name in the primary for the Democratic nomination, a primary that is already the most overcrowded and messiest Democratic primary in recent memory. Patrick is not alone – former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also made headlines announcing he himself has thought about joining.

In my opinion, neither should be in the primary. If we were in January then yes, all the power to them. But we are in November now. We are less than a year away from the election and around eight months until the democratic convention.

Neither of them has a chance to even make it into a debate let alone the nomination. They do not have the polling numbers, the donors or enough people on the ground that carry candidates to the finishing line.

They have name recognition, to a point, but that means nothing when they are put side-by-side with mainstream candidates such as Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders. They add nothing to the primary except more names to a laundry list of candidates.The only reason they have either joined the race or thinking about it is because of all the damaging news about Joe Biden concerning his son’s involvement in China and Elizabeth Warren’s stumbling battle over Medicare-For-All.

But even with two of the frontrunners facing difficulty, that doesn’t mean there is a yellow brick road for outside politicians to just go through and become frontrunners themselves. Patrick and Bloomberg are jumping into a race where they are starting at the beginning when all the other nominees are already at the finishing line.

Bloomberg hasn’t officially announced his candidacy and that should stay that way. Patrick on the other hand, I don’t see his candidacy going far.