Beto Is Running - Updated

Former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke has announced that he's running for president, making him number 16 on my list of declared candidates.

Jonathan Chait, in a New York magazine article titled "Beto O'Rourke Has a Good Reason He's Running. He Just Can't Say It," says Beto's main reason for running is that he's good at running:   

The rationale is the tricky thing. O’Rourke’s actual reason for running is perfectly clear: He is a highly charismatic and inspirational campaigner. (Read the article here.)

Slate piles on with a similar argument in an article titled "Beto 2020 Has No Reason to Exist":

O’Rourke [enters] the race as a man without a clear political ideology, a signature legislative achievement, a major policy issue, or a concrete agenda for the country. Those in the know tell the Atlantic that Beto is planning to run as a candidate “offering hope that America can be better than its current partisan and hate-filled politics, and that the country can come together,” but that—brace yourself—he hasn’t yet “landed on how he’ll propose to actually make that happen.” That’s more of the same empty words Beto’s been offering in public since his loss to Cruz. “I don’t know where I am on a [political] spectrum, and I almost could care less,” he said at a recent stop in Wisconsin. “I just want to get to better things for this country.” (Read it here.)

Finally, for now at least, Washington Post reporter Dan Zak had an interesting thought:

He’s going to be a help to Buttigieg, whose humility, calm and adult-iness will become more and more attractive. https://t.co/g06xLz0o23

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) March 14, 2019

I've moved O'Rourke to the I'm Running list

Note: I recently split the Potential list into two sections, those who are still doing some of the things potential candidates do, and those whose names were mentioned as potential candidates at some point, but aren't doing anything that looks like running. 

Potential Democratic Candidates, in alphabetical order:

1. Michael Bennet (Colorado Senator) added 2/10/19
2. Joe Biden (Former VP)
3. Steve Bullock (Governor of Montana)
4. Bill de Blasio (Mayor of New York City)
5. Terry McAuliffe (Former governor of Virginia)
6. Seth Moulton (Congressman from Massachusetts) 
7. Chris Murphy (Connecticut senator)
8. Eric Swalwell (Congressman from California) added Nov. 8

I'm Probably Not Running: Long-shot candidates who don't appear to be doing any of the things an actual candidate must do: 

1. Stacey Abrams (2018 candidate for Georgia governor) added 1/3/19
2. Jerry Brown (former Governor of California)
3. Mark Cuban (Businessman, owner of the Dallas Mavericks)
4. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (Actor) added Nov. 10
5. Tim Kaine (Virginia senator, 2016 VP nominee)
6. Joe Kennedy (Congressman from Massachusetts) added Nov. 10
7. John Kerry (former Secretary of State, 2004 Democratic nominee) added Nov. 10 
8. Tim Ryan (Congressman from Ohio) added Sept. 8
9. Mark Warner (Virginia senator) added Nov. 10
10. Mark Zuckerberg (Businessman, founder of Facebook)

I'm Running: Declared Democratic Candidates, in order of their announcement

1. John Delaney (7/28/17) 
2. Andrew Yang (11/6/17) 
3. Elizabeth Warren (12/31/18)
4. Tulsi Gabbard (1/11/19)
5. Julián Castro (1/12/19)
6. Kirsten Gillibrand (1/16/19)  
7. Kamala Harris (1/21/19)
8. Pete Buttigieg (1/23/19)
9. Howard Schultz (1/29/19) * Running as an Independent 
10. Marianne Williamson (1/30/19)
11. Cory Booker (2/1/19)
12. Amy Klobuchar (2/10/19)
13. Bernie Sanders (2/19/19)
14. Jay Inslee  (3/1/19)
15. John Hickenlooper (3/4/19)
16. Beto O'Rourke (3/14/19)

I'm Not Running

Oprah Winfrey

Andrew Cuomo
Sheryl Sandberg, added Sept. 8
Jason Kander, added Oct. 17
Robert Iger, added Oct. 22
Michael Avenatti, December 4, 2018
Deval Patrick, December 5, 2018
Martin O'Malley, January 3, 2019
Luis Gutierrez, added January 7, 2019
Tom Steyer, January 9, 2019
Bob Casey, January 19, 2019
Eric Garcetti, January 29, 2019
Andrew Gillum, January 29, 2019
Mitch Landrieu, added February 11, 2019
Eric Holder, 3/4/19
Jeff Merkley, 3/5/19
Sherrod Brown, 3/7/10

I'm Not Running Anymore: Declared candidates who have dropped out

Richard Ojeda (1/25/19)

Days until Election Day: 599

Saturday afternoon update. Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has some fun with Beto's candidacy: 

It must be a grown-up thing, but every time I see Beto O’Rourke, I want to fix him a hamburger. He’s precious.

And, if my eyes serve me, he’s hungry.

Call it maternal instinct; call it age. But, let’s call the Texas Democrat’s nascent presidential campaign what it is: a youthful folly. If only the media machine weren’t already doing its dangedest to advance a narrative primarily of its own making. No one in recent memory, save for Donald Trump, has received so much free advertising by simply showing up.

From near-constant chatter on cable-news shows to a recent cover-story splash in Vanity Fair, O’Rourke is the newest celebrity politician. In a telling quote in the magazine article, he declared: “Man, I’m just born to be in it.”

... None of this is to say he isn’t perfectly qualified to be president of the United States. O’Rourke, after all, served three terms in Congress and barely lost his Senate bid last year to Republican Ted Cruz. Previously, he served as an El Paso city councilman and, otherwise, has worked for a start-up Internet service provider, been a nanny, art mover, proofreader and, when time allowed, a writer of short stories and, briefly, the publisher of an alternative weekly. He also played bass in a punk-rock band called Foss. I’m no soothsayer, but I’d gamble on a late-night-show bass performance real soon.

In fairness, as columnists like to say when they’re midway through a political evisceration, he is precious. To the untrained eye, O’Rourke’s jumping, dancing, lurching pogo-stick histrionics seem more than high-energy. I’d offer a beer with that hamburger, but I fear being accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor leaguer. (Search O’Rourke’s DWI and burglary arrest history if you want to.) Read the column here.)