John Delaney, who’s been running for president since 2017, returns to Iowa City for a book signing

Former Maryland Congressman and current presidential candidate John Delaney will be signing his book, The Right Answer, at High Ground Cafe in Iowa City on Thursday. Delaney, the first 2020 Democratic to declare his candidacy, had already been running for nine months when his book was published in May 2018.

Delaney has been campaigning far longer than any other Democrat seeking the party’s nomination. He launched his presidential campaign with an op-ed in the Washington Post on July 28, 2017, almost 1,200 days before the 2020 presidential election will be held.

“Our government is hamstrung by excessive partisanship,” Delaney wrote in his Post op-ed. That’s been a constant theme throughout Delaney’s two years on the campaign trail. That belief is also the basis of The Right Answer.

The book has been endorsed by AOL co-founder Steve Case: “If you care about a better way to solve our problems at this critical time, this book is a must read.” Publisher’s Marketplace was less impressed, calling it “a bland mix of largely uncontroversial points that goes out of its way, sometimes to the point of inaccuracy, to avoid offending anyone.”

In February 2018, Delaney became the first 2020 candidate to air a television commercial. He’s also the first — and so far, only — candidate to visit all 99 of Iowa’s counties. Despite his frequent visits to the state over the last two years, Delaney was polling at only one percent in the most recent Iowa Poll.

Delaney’s lack of public support hasn’t slowed his campaign, largely because he is able to self-finance. The candidate was a successful businessman before he ran for Congress in 2012. According to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings, Delaney has provided $24,030,000 of the $26,329,776 his campaign has raised, which means the candidate has provided 91 percent of the campaign’s total receipts.

The mid-day book signing and presentation at High Ground Cafe (301 East Market St) is scheduled to last from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.