Why losers run for presidential nominations

By Richard K. Barry

We've all had good fun chuckling at the succession of losers tossed up as frontrunners in the Republican presidential nomination process. It seems that simply hanging around long enough will mean getting a turn at leading the pack. Now it's Gingrich. Yesterday it was Cain. A little while ago it was Perry and before that Bachmann, even Trump for a couple of hours, once upon a time. And then, in all the jockeying, Romney never really goes away.

To ask the question why so many marginal candidates continue to stay in the hunt is to, I suppose, prompt the answer that this thing is so unsettled anyone could win. But that's not really true. And despite what has happened, I still think it's going to be Romney and that most people, even the candidates themselves, know it.

Typically, though, marginal candidates run for these big prizes all the time, and do it without any real chance of success, though their efforts are far from in vain. No, there are good reasons to hang around for at least a little while and maybe longer.

Does anyone doubt that Herman Cain has been running in order to sell books and maybe get his own show on Fox? Up until recently it was a given that Gingrich was running to raise the profile of his brand in order to make money further down the road. Trump's brief foray was obviously a publicity stunt. And though Bachmann has been tanking in the polls for some time, she too has a new book that could use some free publicity. Given the fact that she gave up her day job as a member of the House, she'll need to generate some income when this is all over.

Then their are the no-hopers who use the high profile of a nomination fight to promote pet issues and political perspectives as is the case with Ron Paul's wing-nut libertarian views as well as with Rick Santorum's relentless efforts to push his hard-core anti-abortion stance and other issues important to social conservatives.

A recent post on the CBS News website addressed this issue and pointed out, correctly, that history shows future leadership posts -- and presidential runs -- can result from failed nomination bids.

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa waged a long-shot bid for the Democratic nomination in 1992, getting forced out after the early primaries. He endorsed candidate Bill Clinton, kept his seat in the Senate and became an influential voice in the Clinton White House.

Romney lost his first presidential bid in 2008 but used that experience to build a network of political and financial supporters serving him well in this election cycle.

In Harkin's case and those like him, there may be some gambling going on too. You get in early, run a bit of a campaign, look around to see who you think could actually have a shot and then throw your support there. If you're right, you might get a cabinet post or ambassadorship out of the deal, or just have a lot more clout with the administration you helped win.

In Romney's case, he ran the first time to set up the next time. If I'm not mistaken, Obama had the same sort of thing in mind before it became clear that this time was going to be his time.

In our media-obsessed word, fame is everything. It's the currency that really matters the most, and for many months every four years, the cameras are rolling more or less non-stop on a group of would-be presidents, which always seems to include a subset who are not-ready-for-prime-time, but there they are.

Of course, there is always a long-shot chance that an obscure candidate will vault to the head of the pack and actually win. Politics is so full of that sort of story that every candidate thinks it possible, if all goes right, to win. No matter how hard to imagine, no candidate believes it impossible that he or she could be victorious. That's simply not the way politicians and prospective politicians are hard wired.

So, it's hard to fault them for trying to keep their mugs in front of us for as long as they can. There are lots of reasons that just being in the game, on the stage night after night, is worth the trouble.

Unfortunately for us, we have to watch theses trainwrecks perform because it is one of the costs of living with this form of government. What was it again Churchill said about democracy?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)