Last week we got back from a brief out-of-town trip to find a note from our cat sitter on the kitchen counter. It’s been fun, she said, but she’s abandoning the pet care business for a while.
She’s running for the Democratic nomination for president.
She figures she has a good shot at the thing. Nobody else really has taken a position on the appropriate ratio of canned to dry food in an indoor cat’s proper diet, and she has firm ideas informed by three years of experience.
And lots of politicians currently camping in D.C. have pets – to burnish their wholesome, all-American family images – so (should she make it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) she can easily supplement her presidential salary with her side job.
She’ll fit right in. After all, another candidate is Marianne Williamson, an Oprah Winfrey favorite author (A Return to Love) and motivational speaker calling for a sort of non-denominational “spiritual awakening” of the American people – administering rhetorical nourishment rather than Fancy Feast Savory Salmon Pâté.
Williamson is only one of a slew of folks entering the presidential lists on the Democratic side, each apparently convinced that he or she would be the ideal replacement for the widely loathed current occupant of the White House.
Wayne Messam, the mayor (since 2015!) of Miramar, Fla., is in, as is a California congressman, Eric Swalwell, whose main talent seems to be appealing to the overweening vanity of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, whose Hardball show appears to be Swalwell’s main campaign venue.
In fact, thus far 24 hopeful souls, not counting our cat sitter, have entered the fray. And more could sign up every day.
Among them are bunches of current and ex-senators, some present and former members of Congress, a handful of current and ex-governors, and at least one millionaire and self-described philanthropist, Andrew Yang.
Yang is distinguishing himself – and getting a few headlines – by giving $1,000 a month to a few selected voters in each of the early voting states. How that will translate into votes isn’t clear. But it will certainly be a profitable candidacy for whatever Granite Staters he deigns to favor with his largesse.
Folks who’ve been around Democratic politics for a few years will be delighted to learn that a familiar old – and I do mean old – name is on the list of would-be commanders-in-chief. Mike Gravel is back in the game!
Gravel is a former Alaska senator (1968-1980) and staunch liberal who was a key player in the anti-war turmoil of the 1970s and later resurfaced to make a quixotic 2008 bid for the White House as a fervent opponent of the Iraq conflict.
He withdrew shortly after winning 404 votes, or 0.14% of about 280,000 cast in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. It was a fairly underwhelming performance, and Gravel gradually faded from public life.
Now 89 and a resident of California, Gravel was reactivated by a couple of hyper-political New York teenagers who, hearing about him on a radio show, called him up, found out he’s as opinionated as ever and persuaded him to give it one more try. They introduced him to the joys – and usefulness – of Twitter and set him loose. Campaign by tweet! No need even to leave the house! Hey, if it works for Trump, why not for Gravel?
And as a bonus for political junkies at a time when virtually all the Democratic candidates are trying not to fight among themselves, the feisty octogenarian doesn’t hesitate to take potshots-by-acidulous-tweets at his ostensible rivals. Turns out he is decidedly not a sweet little old man.
At least Gravel’s acerbic tweets distinguish him in the large field. As they view the burgeoning roster, most politics watchers expect a lot of the candidates to drop out early because of low poll numbers and lack of money.
Once-rising-star Beto O’Rourke, a tall, toothy Kennedy-lookalike Texan whose primary talent seems to be an amazing ability to jump on tables and wave his arms around, seems to be fading already.
Among the two-dozen there’s a whole raft of pleasant-looking but nondescript middle-aged white guys – Michael Bennet, John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Steve Bullock, Tim Ryan, Seth Moulton – who are, well, nondescript. And thus quite interchangeable – and unmemorable.
Rule One of electoral politics: For you to be a successful candidate, voters have to remember which one you are.
At least no one is going to mix up Kirsten Gillibrand with Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren with Joe Biden.
But with at least two dozen so-called serious – defined as unlikely to show up for debates wearing clown costumes – candidates vying for the spotlight, voters’ chances of hearing a serious, substantive discussion among them are vanishingly slim unless the debates are at least three hours long.
The only way an audience would stay put for a three-hour event would be if it featured actual physical combat. But these aren’t gladiators. They’re Democrats. Well, except for Bernie Sanders, who has decided once again to crash the Dems’ party, mostly because he hasn’t one of his own.
And he does fit in, sort of. Because Bernie mostly talks, and so do the real Democrats. They all have similar ideas, and they talk. And talk. Eventually, presumably, the best talker will get the most votes and be designated to take on the really big – and, frankly, crazy – talker in the White House.
And who knows? Our erstwhile cat sitter, as I recall, is a pretty convincing talker as well as a superb custodian of small furry creatures. I’m not ruling her out.
Plus – and this is worth remembering amidst all the feverish speculating – it is still 506 days until Election Day, 2020.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)