Member-only story
Get the Fringe Presidential Hopefuls Off the Debate Stage
The Democratic Party needs to stop wasting time on vanity candidates
October 15 is coming up — and that means another clown car of a Democratic presidential primary debate. Twelve candidates will take the stage in Ohio, it was announced on Tuesday of last week, among them Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, and Tulsi Gabbard. Meeting the donation and polling thresholds for the debate is undoubtedly a win for their respective campaigns — but it’s a failure for the Democratic Party, and a symptom of a worsening problem within the two-party system that has begun to deeply damage American democracy.
Simply put: The guardrails have come off the intraparty presidential nominating process, foisting candidates who are unqualified to govern or out of step with the core values of their parties into the mainstream of American life. It’s bad enough when these vanity and fringe candidates simply lose, but as the election of the unqualified, ideologically incoherent Donald Trump shows: It’s even worse when they win.
Instead of effectively addressing this problem — and in the face of one of the most urgent political moments in half a century — the Democratic Party is frittering away its opportunity to clearly define itself and showcase its leading candidates before the public…
