Presidential candidate John Delaney can’t win. Literally. Also, metaphorically.
The first part should be obvious. Delaney stands no chance of winning the Iowa Caucus. Or finishing second. Or third. He won’t win a caucus or primary in any state.
But the conventions of American political journalism prevent reporters from acknowledging certain obvious things. In the same way Donald Trump’s blatant racism is described with evasive euphemisms such as “racially tinged language,” Delaney is called “a long-shot candidate,” even though it is obvious he will not be elected president in 2020.
Delaney shows no signs of dropping out before the Feb. 3 caucus, despite being left out of the last debate. And the one before that. And the one before that. Delaney bought TV airtime in Iowa during the Jan. 14 debate to run a commercial reminding people he’s running for president. He could do that, not because he has a strong donor base — he doesn’t — but because he’s a multi-millionaire who wants to be president.
Which brings us to why John Delaney can’t win in a metaphorical sense.
As one impressive Democratic candidate after another has dropped out of the 2020 race, citing fundraising problems as a major reason — Kirsten Gillibrand, Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker — there has been increasing attention focused on self-financing rich men trying to buy the presidency. But all the attention is focused on billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg.
That’s not fair. John Delaney should be the poster-boy for this phenomena. Unlike Steyer and Bloomberg, Delaney already has experience buying his way into an elected office at the federal level. He was a two-term congressman who represented Maryland’s 6th District. A Democrat was always going to be elected to that district in the first election after the district’s boundaries were redrawn following the 2010 census, and Delaney, in his run for office, self-financed his way to a win using part of the vast personal wealth he accrued in his business career. (He started and sold two financial services companies.)
How vast is that personal wealth? In 2018, Delaney’s final year in Congress, Roll Call listed him as the sixth wealthiest member of Congress. Using financial disclosure documents, the paper estimated Delaney’s net worth at $92.6 million.
Those millions allowed Delaney to set a new record by declaring his candidacy earlier than any other presidential candidate in American history. Delaney announced his 2020 run in a Washington Post op-ed on July 28, 2017. By the time Caucus Day arrives, he will have been running for president for 920 days.
Delaney has been steadily campaigning since the summer of 2017. Data journalism site FiveThirtyEight averages leading polls to determine a candidate’s overall support — Delaney is at 0.1 percent. That’s actually better than his standing in the most recent Iowa Poll; Delaney received 0 percent support from likely Democratic caucus-goers.
But none of that matters as long as John Delaney still wants to be president, and is still willing to spend his own money. And he has been willing to spend. Delaney has contributed more than 90 percent of the money his already 900-plus-day campaign has received.
And yet, despite the fact he tapped his bank account to get himself a seat in Congress and has been lighting millions on fire to fuel a comically long and unsuccessful presidential campaign, Delaney doesn’t rate a mention in stories about the 2020 phenomena of rich men trying to buy their way into office. No one takes him seriously. So why run the marathon?
“I’ve stayed in this fight for you,” Delaney said in the commercial he ran during the Jan. 14 debate. “I’ve done more events than any candidate and I know in my heart that our extraordinary nation remains one of unlimited potential and that my unique ideas on infrastructure, trade, climate and national service are needed to help realize it.”
His ideas call for the sort of incrementalist changes that Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg have had success promoting (and on which Steve Bullock, John Hickenlooper, Seth Moulton and Tim Ryan based their now-dead 2020 presidential campaigns), and led to one of his few moments in the national spotlight.
After listening to Delaney explain that Democrats shouldn’t be pushing for major economic changes during the July 30, 2019 Democratic candidates’ debate, Elizabeth Warren responded with what the New York Times described as “the line of the night.”
“You know, I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” Warren said. “I don’t get it.”
Whether Warren or anyone else gets it doesn’t matter, because as long as Delaney can pay the bills, he can keep his campaign going.
According to Aristotle, everyone desires to be happy and that’s the ultimate reason for all our actions. In the ’90s, a number of very rich men (and they were men) busied themselves with long-distance hot air ballooning. More recently, the very, very rich have developed an interest in space travel. For other wealthy Americans, starting a charitable organization named after yourself and hosting fundraising galas suits their fancy. Everyone needs a hobby.
Instead of doing those things, John Delaney is running for president.
But the guy just can’t win.
A shorter version of this article was originally published in Little Village issue 277.
I live in Florida but if I lived in Iowa I would caucus for John Delaney. He embodies what I am looking for in the next president of the United States. Delaney has an admirable biography; as the grandson of immigrants and the son of middle class parents, he espouses traditional values that mark him as realistic and optimistic. I read his book and was impressed by his policy positions and strong commitment to bipartisanship. I prefer John Delaney to the other moderates in the race because his youth makes him more appealing to me than Joe Biden who is two months younger than me. I want a president who wakes up in the morning raring to go, not one with aches and pains like mine. I prefer Delaney to Mayor Pete based on Delaney’s experience in government and business. I really like Buttigieg’s articulateness but I’m looking for more experience. As I’m writing this it’s occurring to me that I’m not a registered Democrat so, even if I were a resident, Iowa rules would probably preclude me from caucusing. In Florida I’m categorized as having No Party Affiliation; a wonderful surprise for me would be being able to vote for Delaney in November 2020. Stranger things have happened.
Eileen Flynn, I could not agree with you more. I’m voting for him regardless… writing him in. To me, he has the best positioning for what I will call “sensible” voters who are yearning for a person that would take steps to bring the end to the “new civil war” between partisans on both sides, R’s and D’s. I fault him only for declaring as a Democrat, and getting mixed in with that strange batch of candidates. I’ve told him that via letters, suggesting he should have dropped out months ago and come right out and announced as the first candidate for 2024, running as a true Independent who is taking a strong “anti party” stance. with a goal of running on HIS ideas and qualifications. Then he would have years to put himself out there for those who are totally fed up with the rabid partisan BS that has most of us so turned off. In fact, he should be an attractive choice for “No Party Affliation” people like you and me, and moderates on both sides of the aisle. Instead of just running ads, I’d like him to “buy” his own weekly TV show in which he’d get like-minded people to join him in thought provoking and innovative discussions, critiquing what passes for “governance” these days. And planting the seeds for a truly outside the box and outside the beltway candidacy. “Fireside with John Delaney” would be the tag line perhaps. I have long hoped we’d find someone who would simply defy party establishment politicians and the shouters and screamers on the extremes. We got that establishment slayer, the outsider in the White House now. But he is a far cry from what we need in terms of “who he is”. Delaney is the polar opposite of DJT in so many ways. But he would definitely be an agent for change — the right KIND of change.
I’ll be voting for him, not because he will necessarily win (I hope he does) but simply because he has the best ideas. Can’t see the point of this article ripping on the guy for running and standing for what he believes in just because he will probably not win. I hope he stays in the race until April so I can vote for him here in Wisconsin, perseverance is a trait to be admired.
I am 100% convinced these 3 other comments are written by John Delaney himself. He has no ideas, and is a parody of an uninspiring, “status quo” politician. The bizarre focus on his ancestry is taken straight out of a terrible political ad – what does that have to do with ANYTHING? All 3 comments mention that he has the best ideas, but haven’t mentioned a single policy idea that they like with him. Nice try, John Delaney.
What America needs is fundamental, systematic change to help the working class that has been screwed over for the past decades. If any working class American lived in any other Western, developed country for a year they’d immediately pivot to the left, considering how far to the corporate right America has shifted with the help of billion dollar ads and political donations. Time to wake up.
Art, I am not John Delaney; I am Eileen Flynn, the name attached to my comments above.
You say that you are 100% convinced that
“I am 100% convinced these 3 other comments are written by John Delaney himself.”
In regard to my comment, for certain you are 100% wrong.
Please read Delaney’s book. I did and I considered his ideas on making health insurance available while keeping the health care industry solvent, his thinking on AI, his approach to the climate crisis which takes into account a myriad of issues, and his eagerness to reach across the aisle and work with both sides positions that I can stand with eagerly. Beyond that, I considered his temperament which strikes me as balanced and reasoned and I find that reassuring and important.
Art, I am a 77 year old woman living in Florida; I have seen and heard Delaney on television and read his book. I never met him or any other candidate running in the Democratic primary. I hope to vote for John Delaney for president of the United States. I’m hoping that you will offer apologies to John Delaney for your suggestion that he wrote my comment and to me for denying my reality.
The systematic change to help the working class is a universal basic income of $1000 a month. Andrew Yang has the best and most forward thinking policies of any candidate in the field. His leadership and vision is what America needs for the 21st Century.
I wish he would drop out already. As someone living in poverty and margianalized to the point where I know I’ll never get ahead in today’s landscape, this man offers literally nothing for me. We don’t need a “sensible” candidate, we need someone who offers real economic change, and will offer real tangible help to people who are suffering. I’m so tired of seeing rich, white, narcissists running for president because they can. And when your polling consistently at 0 – 1% in a still-cluttered field, seeing his stubborn name still there is like a punch in the face. It literally makes me hate my life even more, as if I didn’t feel hopeless enough. This man is an A-hole