Stephen Colbert should have run for the Democratic nomination

[crazytown]

If the party is prepared to countenance the joke of having a self proclaimed love boat as the nominee, we should have had the choice of a real comedian - if Jon Stewart was not available.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Love Boat? Did I miss something?

I thought Gopher was a Republican in Congress?

[Funtatlaguy]

2. #loveboat #crystalsandcream #palmreadingprincess

[Hortensis]

3. :) Colbert would just instruct his staff to qualify him and

they'd do it. Wouldn't require a Colbert, as we're seeing with #loveboat and others. These days many far lesser known comedians would be able to promote themselves sufficiently to meet the debate criteria. Even if everyone who knew them despised them.

Election reform really, really needs to include a principled way to keep flakes and people promoting themselves to increase their speaking fees off the presidential stage. This isn't just supposed to be serious business, it's enormously serious. These people can potentially cause great injury to our party, and thus our nation, and even conceivably be elected.

The DNC kept the stage too lean in 2016 by cutting 9 Democratic candidates, and 24 candidates are the results of the backlash. Though bizarrely as it turned out, and true to these troubled times, it was created, not by one of the Democrats who were cut, but by an independent populist candidate who benefited enormously by being included and having the stage cleared for him.