The first question any candidate for office has to answer is why he or she is actually running for the job. You’d be surprised how many have no real answer beyond, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
But for Michael Bennet, the question is just a little tougher. I mean, coming off prostate cancer surgery, with 20 Dems already in the field — many of them qualified, one from his own state — Bennett announced he was running, too. In adding one more Dem, the earth did not move. Much of the earth didn’t even take notice. Bennet says he’s a long shot and he is. We’re talking a Kentucky Derby-sized field, but, after a DQ, it’s worthwhile remembering that a 65-to-1 shot was the winner.
And still they come, despite the numbers in the latest poll I saw, which didn’t include Bennet: Only eight candidates were above 1%. Only six were above 3%. (John Hickenlooper, by the way, hit 1%, a step up from the last poll when he hit a big fat 0.) Don’t you have to be a raging egotist or terribly naive — and Bennet, I can testify, is neither — to believe the race to defeat Donald Trump needs yet another candidate, particularly one with decidedly low name recognition and no obvious base?
Read the full column at Colorado Independent.