| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Patrick Ruffini directs our attention to Andrew Yang, the current frontrunner in the New York City mayoral primary: Pay attention to the Yang play — launch futile Prez bid to establish name ID for a race you'd otherwise have no business running in, leapfrogging a host of local pols. If it works, 25+ candidate fields could be the norm moving forward … If all politics is national and it's easier these days for everyone get their 15 minutes in a Presidential primary, this seems like a viable strategy in states where it's impossible to break through like CA, TX, NY.
Maybe? Let's start with 2012. The Republican candidates included Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Buddy Roemer, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, Thaddeus McCotter, Gary Johnson and Herman Cain. None of them built any sort of electoral success from their presidential campaigns; Romney did later win a Utah Senate seat, but it's entirely possible the former governor (from a different state) would've done so without his presidential campaigns. A couple of these candidates probably wound up using the publicity they gained to make money in the conservative marketplace. But we've seen plenty of other Republicans achieve that from House seats or less, so a presidential campaign seems like a lot of trouble to go through to catch the attention of Fox News producers. How about 2016? On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders certainly gained influence within the party from his first presidential run, but that's not really what we're talking about here — it's not what gets 25 candidates to run. Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee, Jim Webb and Lawrence Lessig? Not so much. That brings us to the super-sized 2016 Republican field. Certainly, Donald Trump's election seems likely to encourage other candidates without conventional qualifications to run, although so far we haven't seen much evidence of that at any level. Beyond that? We're really talking about people who are using the process to leapfrog the normal avenues for advancement, so that leaves out Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker and Perry again — all of whom were current or recent statewide elected officials, the type that normally runs for and wins presidential nominations. The other 2016 Republicans are the relevant ones: Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, George Pataki, and Santorum. It's true that Carson became a cabinet secretary, but otherwise there's not a whole lot there to give anyone hope. And now, the true monster field: Democrats in 2020. It's of course very early to assess how the contenders have prospered, Yang notwithstanding. For the record, the other announced candidates who were not current or very recent governors or senators included: Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer, John Delaney, Marianne Williamson, Julian Castro, Joe Sestak, Wayne Messam, Beto O'Rourke, Tim Ryan, Bill de Blasio, Seth Moulton, Mike Gravel, Eric Swalwell and Richard Ojeda. (Disclosure: Michael Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP.) So far, Yang has become a serious mayoral candidate and Ryan appears to be running for an open Senate seat in Ohio. Yang certainly was helped by his presidential race, but it's not really clear that Ryan's has had any effect at all on his Senate prospects. So we're really just talking about Yang so far. And even in his case, there's the question of opportunity cost: What if, instead of running for president, he had run for something in New York in 2018 or 2020? After all, his presidential campaign began in November 2017 — and it needed to begin that early for him to gather enough support to qualify for televised debates and therefore appear to be running a "real" campaign. Perhaps Yang could've used that time to build name recognition in some other way. Of course, the real question is less whether long-shot presidential bids are a good bet for ambitious politicians than whether those politicians believe that it's a good path to future success. And that's where Ruffini is almost certainly correct: Never mind that most of the no-name candidates remained obscure, and never mind whether Yang could've found another path — if he becomes mayor after running for president, or even comes close, many in the political world are going to interpret his campaign as a savvy move, no matter how many counterexamples exist. For candidates with conventional qualifications, the calculus is presumably the same as it has been throughout the modern era. Other than the chance of clinching the nomination, there's always the possibility that they'll boost their chances of winning the running-mate lottery, gain new influence in the party or otherwise advance long-term goals. My guess, however, is that running for president is actually a lousy way to jump-start a political career for almost everyone. So we may be in for more huge presidential candidate fields, but almost everyone in them would be better off doing something else. 1. Yoon Jung Park at the Monkey Cage on Chinese investments in Africa. 2. Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek Epp and Kelsey Shoub on the problems with traffic stops. 3. Heather Hurlburt on Afghanistan and the politics of national security. 4. Rachel Siegel on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and homelessness. 5. Quinta Jurecic on the new information about Paul Manafort and the 2016 election. 6. Jamelle Bouie on the New Deal. 7. And my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Francis Wilkinson on Canada's gun laws. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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