Thursday, August 22, 2019

Outslee

Jay Inslee, who was one of the first 2020 Democratic presidential candidates that I evaluated, has become the fourth 2020 Democratic presidential candidate (after Eric Swalwell, John Hickenlooper and Mike Gravel - yes Gravel was actually running!) to withdraw from the party's presidential nomination process. 
Inslee centered his campaign around climate change, citing his strong environmental record as governor of Washington State.  He wasn't the only presidential candidate talking about climate change, but he was the only one who made it the cornerstone of his campaign, arguing that all of the other issues the country faces revolve around the future of the planet.   Despite the fact that he earned credit for this, climate change proved to be as much his headstone as it was his cornerstone; not enough people cared about his message.  And besides, a lot of people dismissed him as just another boring white guy, apparently confusing him with Bill de Blasio.
See, this is why I'm disgusted with partisan presidential primary politics (though I'm not disgusted with alliterations).  Were I not so cynical, and were I interested in participating in the Democratic primaries, I likely would have considered supporting Inslee for his climate-change stance alone, but the fact that he was polling in the low single digits - the main reason he's withdrawing - meant that he was never going to get anywhere, and the same could have been said for Hickenlooper, Swalwell, and other dark-horse presidential candidates with spell-checker-unfriendly surnames.  I have no stomach to support anyone whom I think should be President as opposed to just falling in line with one of the front runners; after my Martin O'Malley experience, I have no desire to go through O'Malley Mark Two.
I'm even more disgusted that the presidential candidate who emphasized climate change more than his primary opponents couldn't get enough people to care about it and so had to drop out - on the same day tornadoes plowed through . . . Connecticut.
Inslee isn't going anywhere just yet.  He plans to run for a third term as governor of Washington State in 2020, and I wouldn't be surprised if, should the Democrats win the Presidency then, he becomes the winning nominee's EPA administrator.

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