Michael Bennet, one of our favorite Colorado senators, made a fine if sputtering bid for attention in the Democratic primary contest for the 2020 presidential nomination earlier this year. He has since been in D.C., where he should be when the Senate is in session, but the wondrous thing is that he is also still, quietly, running for president.
It is not altogether his fault that the volume is down. Bennet risks talking himself hoarse. He is not the biggest shrinking violet. But there was little hoopla when he registered for the first-in-the-nation primary, in New Hampshire, recently, because so many people assume he is a dead man walking if they even know he is still on the hustings.
Bennet’s chance of making some noise and getting back on the big stage is as slender as Fred Astaire at this point – which is why his continuing effort is beginning to seem noble.
In the run-up to the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics in 2016, where Michael Phelps was due to settle the question of who was the greatest swimmer of all time, one of Phelps’ sponsors, Under Armour, produced a 90-second TV ad, “Rule Yourself.” After scenes of Phelps’ grueling, lonely training, we heard the roar of spectators, saw the message, “It’s what you do in the dark that puts you in the light” – and we still get goosebumps.
Bennet’s quest has been a little like that, minus the crowd so far. In his noble effort to get anyone to listen to his pitch for straight-up liberalism with a side of healthy skepticism about socialism being right for America, he is still looking for a spark.
It could happen. It is only December. There are semi-dry conditions. We do not know who the nominee will be.
“I truly believe that that person is as likely to be someone polling at 1% today as it is to be the people that are leading in the race today,” Bennet told reporters after filing his New Hampshire paperwork. “Stranger things have happened than that.”
We would also add that stranger things have happened than a candidate of Bennet’s caliber and principles being virtually ignored by his party’s base – but we cannot think of many, which is another reason we do not begrudge him this effort.
As long as there is no prohibitive favorite, he should be out there.
“This is the most unsettled field ever,” Craig Hughes, a top Bennet strategist, recently told the AP. “The dynamics are unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”
Hughes said the Bennet campaign is shopping for new office space as it expands in New Hampshire.
There is still plenty of merchandise on the campaign website, michaelbennet.com, too, including Bennet For America Trans Pride vinyl stickers, Bet On Bennet 2020 pins that are sure to be collector’s items and the Michael Bennet For America tote, which comes in natural canvas.
He is not going this alone. Yet for as long as it can continue, we like to think of Bennet out there on a shoe shine and a prayer, moving through airports and Holiday Inns (“It’s Bennet, B-E-N-N-E-T ... I’m a senator?”), a garment bag slung over his shoulder: Colorado’s emissary of roll-up-your dress-sleeves decency and common sense.
If nothing else, we think he will be an even better senator for this escapade – and we can still hope for more.
