Jay Inslee

Yet another person announced their candidacy for the Democratic nomination this week. Jay Inslee, governor of Washington, said he was running as "the climate change candidate." As important as that issue is, I think it's a bit foolhardy to run a one-issue campaign, unless his sole desire is to make sure that the issue is talked about.

Inslee, incredibly, is the first bland white man to enter the race. He looks like a president that would appear in a film, though we've never had one that actually looked like that.

He did spend a few years in the House of Representatives, so he presumably has thoughts about other issues than climate change, especially foreign policy, which a governor rarely has to address. His Wikipedia page doesn't reveal much on that front, so I turned to ontheissues.org, which I once again highly recommend. They rank him a "hard-core liberal," and indeed, looking over his stances, he seems a highly suitable candidate. The only nitpick I have is with his votes to extend the Patriot Act's wiretapping, and way back to deploy SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative, which was laughable.

Inslee's problem is that while the other candidates have had time to grow their recognition, he's a little behind. Candidates like him will really have to make their marks in debates, and because there are so many candidates they may have the children's table version of debates for single-digit polling candidates. If their are Democrats who want to vote nothing but for a WASP man, he may be their guy, as O'Rourke and Biden are both Catholic. John Hickenlooper may be the only other WASP man to run (although we're still hearing about Steve Bullock and Sherrod Brown).

Inslee would probably make a very good VP pick, especially if the top of the ticket were a woman. He does look so much like a president that it may calm some who would never think of voting for a woman. But really, I don't think there are any Democrats who think that way, not anymore.