{"id":29329,"date":"2019-09-13T13:53:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T17:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=29329"},"modified":"2019-09-13T13:53:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T17:53:20","slug":"can-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=29329","title":{"rendered":"Can We..."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reduce the field of pundits by about 75%?<\/p>\n<p>There's an endless stream of breathless editorials whining that the Democratic field is too big and that it needs to get cut down <i>really quickly<\/i> or... the world will end.<\/p>\n<p>Here's one of today's, from Donna Edwards:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/beta.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2019\/09\/13\/its-time-democratic-field-start-getting-smaller\/\">It\u2019s time for the Democratic<\/a> field to start getting smaller<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s after Labor Day and the race for the Democratic nomination is now well underway. Despite the fact that it\u2019s a long road trip, the field seems determined to use the byways instead of the highways. Democrats know where they\u2019re headed, but they aren\u2019t so sure when they\u2019ll get there. And at this point, they might be better off with fewer passengers along for the ride.<\/p>\n<p>...<\/p>\n<p>Whether by natural selection or volunteerism (and whether they know it or not), time is up for most of the field. Just because the rules allow you to continue to breathe shallow breaths into your campaign does not mean you should.<\/p>\n<p>Are we there yet? It\u2019s time to get on the interstate.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That's all true; most of these candidates have no chance. And they should really just get out of the way and let those who do have a chance get more speaking time.<\/p>\n<p>But you know what?<\/p>\n<p>In 2008, there were <b>eight<\/b> Democrats going into the Iowa caucuses - January 3rd! Gasp! <strong>And the world didn't end!<\/strong> By the end of January, five of them had dropped out, including Joe Biden. That left Clinton, Obama and not-a-chance-in-hell Mike Gravel (who changed parties in March).<\/p>\n<p>Patience, pundits. I know this preliminary round stuff is boring, but that's how the tournament works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reduce the field of pundits by about 75%? There's an endless stream of breathless editorials whining that the Democratic field is too big and that it needs to get cut down really quickly or... the world will end. Here's one of today's, from Donna Edwards: It\u2019s time for the Democratic field to start getting smaller [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29330,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29329\/revisions\/29330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}