Why Not Everyone Should Run for President

Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX)

Every presidential cycle, when there is an open primary, a cast of characters emerge.  There are the frontrunners, the past-their-prime candidates, the stalwart politicians who are too respectable to ignore but too boring to ever win, the gadflies who have just a good enough title in front of their name (frequently coupled with "former") to get on a debate stage...these are all cast members who show up at the show.  In 2020, though, after the shock win of Donald Trump four years ago, I'm seeing more-and-more candidates who fall into a newer category, one that occasionally shows up but by-and-large isn't a steadfast category in the primaries: the under-qualified candidate.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what makes someone "under-qualified" but mostly its someone you wouldn't traditionally consider "qualified" to hold the White House.  While no one is ever really "ready" for the presidency, a few groups of people are more prepared than others: Vice Presidents, Speakers of the House, high-ranking cabinet secretaries (particularly State and Defense), governors, senators, and to a lesser degree, top-ranking generals.  These are people who are already at the upper-echelons of the government, who know both the domestic & international roles of a president, and who know the seriousness of what they are undertaking.  This isn't to say that all of the people who hold these positions are qualified (Jim Inhofe, for example, is about as ready to be president as Donald Trump), but there's a sense of inevitability that someone with this resumé will win the White House.

In 2020, though, after the unlikely success of Donald Trump, more-and-more we're seeing people who would have been laughed at in previous cycles thinking about a run for the White House.  Rep. John Delaney was the first "serious" (the quotation marks are very much needed here) candidate to take a play for the White House, despite his only qualifications being a six-year stint in the House with no major accomplishments; his former colleagues Eric Swalwell & Tulsi Gabbard appear to have similar plans despite thin congressional careers & tenures.  Mayor Pute Buttegieg runs a city that is no bigger than a mid-level suburb, but for some reason thinks he can be a successful president.

Weirdly, one of the most popular trends of 2020 seems to be candidates who lost their races in 2018 and somehow think they should seek higher office as a solution.  Rep. Beto O'Rourke is the most famous of this group, but State Rep. Stacey Abrams and Mayor Andrew Gillum both have floated similar trial balloons, wondering if they can translate national fervor for their failed campaigns into runs for the White House.  Even State Sen. Richard Ojeda, who got clobbered in a race for an open House seat in West Virginia, appears to be running to be #45 in 2020.

It might be a bit condescending to group all of these candidates together, but I'm going to point out that if they all become serious candidates at the expense of more experienced challengers in 2020, we have taken away the wrong lesson from President Trump.  Ambitious politicians (which these people certainly are), surely can take away a lesson from Donald Trump that it doesn't much matter who actually runs for the White House, as long as you win, but the lesson should be that Donald Trump is a terrible president, someone who never should have run for the office in the first place.  Part of that is his policies, but it's worth pointing out that Donald Trump just isn't qualified to be president-he doesn't have the experience.  And while it's entirely possible that these candidates could make fine presidents in the future, none of them yet have the experience necessary for the job either.  They need to run for other offices before that happens.

One of the truly heinous things that Democrats have done in the past two decades (that Republicans have not done) is that they put too much emphasis on the presidency at the expense of other important offices.  Yes, the White House is important (alarmingly so in an era where Congress continually shirks its duties to check-and-balance), but winning the White House and not having a bench ultimately limits your ability to enact change.  All of these candidates should, if they want to become president, pursue lower offices first to prove that they can win something as important as the White House and to show that they want to grow the party.

State Rep. Stacey Abrams (D-GA)

Abrams, for example, has a prime opportunity to pick up a Senate seat for the party in 2020 by taking on David Perdue.  She did better than any Democrat has in Georgia for governor since Roy Barnes in 1998, and would be a stellar candidate to run against Perdue in 2020.  At only the age of 45, she could easily translate a term or two in the Senate into a very serious push for the White House in 2024 or 2028, and would be doing so as a successful senator who beat an incumbent to get her job, rather than as a recent statewide loser who'd seem to be trying for a Hail Mary pass rather than taking her chances seriously.

This is true for pretty much everyone on this list.  Buttegieg would be a great option for governor in 2020, Gillum could run for Senate or Governor in 2022, Swalwell or Gabbard could quickly climb the ladder in the House perhaps trying for the next open governor's race (both are so young they'd still be among the youngest presidents in a race in 2028 or 2032), and Ojeda could try for a rematch or (better yet) make a play for governor of West Virginia in 2020.  This would prove to voters that they can win tough races, which any run for the White House, especially against a sitting president, would be a great reason to vote for them in a future presidential primary.  In fact, the reality that John Delaney wouldn't take on a Republican governor in 2018 (forcing his very blue state to be GOP-led for another four years) basically precluded him from being a candidate I'd consider.  But right now, they simply aren't qualified to be president yet, and them engaging in vanity runs for the White House has real-world implications.

After all, as I mentioned above, the Democrats' stress on only the White House has cost them valuable ability to enact real change during the Obama administration and first two years of the Trump administration, something Republicans have been able to do.  The reason that Abrams sticks out to me in this regard is that she is probably the only Democrat who could plausibly defeat Perdue in 2020; the fervor she has with Georgia's black community, as well as her strong support in the Atlanta suburbs combined with a presidential year turnout could be enough to best the Republican incumbent.  Democrats need 3-4 seats (depending on who the Vice President is) to win the Senate in 2020, which will be crucially important if the next POTUS gets to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Stephen Breyer (very possible if they are not out of office during Trump's current term).  While 2020 is a better map for the left than 2018, getting a net of 3-4 is going to be tough, and a win from Abrams would go a long way in gaining the Democrats control.  Abrams's bid for the White House would be an extreme longshot at best, but her forgoing a Senate race could be the difference between RBG being replaced by an equally progressive successor or Mitch McConnell refusing to seat anyone until he has a Republican president.  That's what's at stake here, and why "anyone can run for president" is a dangerous game to play for candidates who don't have a strong pathway to the White House.

You'll notice O'Rourke's name is missing there, and I'll admit I don't really think Beto O'Rourke is ready to be president either; three terms in the House followed by a failed Senate bid are pretty scant credentials. However, based on his national poll numbers, it'd be difficult for me to argue that he shouldn't make this play.  It might be unfair (it's worth noting that the national media is giving a lot more credence for a straight white male who lost rather than someone like Gillum, Buttegieg, or Abrams), but O'Rourke has captured the national consciousness in a way these three haven't.  Unlike these candidates, I'd make a sincere argument that he could win the nomination in 2020 (I'll have my Top 10 list out this weekend, but be assured he's on it, and positioned relatively high), and such opportunities where you have a realistic shot at the nomination don't come around very often, so if I was advising him, I'd say he should run even though Texas also has a Senate seat in 2020 that would be worth exploring considering how close he came last year.

The rest of these candidates should tread lightly, though, because (contrary to political opinion), the recent belief "there's nothing to lose when you run for president" isn't really true.  A lousy run for POTUS can make your future runs look like sour grapes or kind of pathetic.  After 2016, for example, it's impossible to imagine a future where Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, or Rand Paul ever become president, even if they are still sitting senators.  The same could easily happen to Abrams, Gillum, Delaney, and the rest, but here they'd do so without a high office to fall back, biding their time in hopes of becoming a John McCain or Hillary Clinton or George HW Bush.  If Abrams loses in 2020, she'll be a two-time loser whose political brand would be shot; one of the most promising candidates of 2018 would disappear with almost nothing to show for it.  In my opinion, it'd be smarter for her to make a play in 2020 for the Senate or wait for a rematch against Kemp, making a big bet on herself where her odds are much stronger.  Other than O'Rourke, I'd say all of these candidates should pursue a similar path.  Donald Trump is a role model in virtually no way, but perhaps especially he's not a role model for aspiring politicians-he won in 2016 thanks to luck, timing, and probably Russian interference.  That's not a recipe that can be duplicated, and you'd be better off getting a more traditional launchpad before you make a play at the highest office in the land, rather than buying a lottery ticket that's going to do you more harm than good.