Morning Politocadoes!
Sobering news for the Presidential Race. He was an outsider, a long shot, he had tried before, an Independent, but that hadn’t stopped him from his trying to realize his dream of becoming President one day.
Yes, Lincoln Chafee has dropped out of the running for President as a Libertarian. Chafee and his family had moved to Wyoming in 2019 and joined the Libertarian party. He formally announced his candidacy in January of 2020.
Citing the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak as a major factor, the former Senator from Rhode Island ended his campaign on Sunday via Facebook promising to “help other Libertarians seeking office”.
Chafee was a Republican in the Senate but became an Independent after losing his seat in 2006. He was then elected as Rhode Island’s Governor in 2010 and became a Democrat while in office. Instead of running for re-election, he began his quest for the White House in 2015.
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2020/04/06/lincoln-chafee-libertarian-president
We all remember those heady days of people twitter ending their tweets with #ChafeeChurn. Lincoln Chafee was the most consequential person running for the Democratic nomination in 2015. Everyone loved Chafee. And those who did not love Chafee wanted to be Lincoln Chafee. There were Lincoln Chafee memes, bumper stickers, and coffee mugs. Indeed, were one to not see Lincoln Chafee one would have to ask, ‘Where’s Chafee?” Who could forget Alan Alda’s unforgettable cameos on SNL as the inimitable Lincoln Chafee?
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All joking aside. Bernie Sanders ended his campaign on Wednesday. Citing no path forward to the nomination, the Independent Senator from Vermont bid farewell to what is likely his last shot at the Presidency. Building on his historic campaign in 2015 where he was the only serious challenge to eventual nominee 2016 Hillary Clinton, Sanders continued to loudly champion for fundamental human rights for all Americans, undocumented or otherwise.
Bold and single-minded, Sanders was unafraid to throw elbows even against friends and easy allies like Senator Elizabeth Warren, likely to his detriment. Much can be said about how he chose to run his campaign and what sort of attitude he cultivated in his organization, but it can never be forgot what he was fighting for. And given the entirely unsatisfactory response from the federal government against the Coronavirus pandemic, many of the structural issues he railed against have been brought starkly to light. Suddenly, lots of what he and his other Democratic hopefuls were saying aren’t so crazy anymore: Medicare For All, Universal Basic Income, these are things that are suddenly no longer hurdles when the chips are down. It’s just a shame that this is what it takes for the Serious People to take it seriously.
Time will tell just what exactly future nominee Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. will put into the Democratic Party’s platform. But hopefully, the discussions that Sanders is reported to have had with Barack Obama will lead to some integration of the further left policies that candidates like Warren and Sanders advocated will filter into Biden’s campaign. We can only hope.
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