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Michael Bennet Banking on Moderation in Age of Trump

Associated Press

   DES MOINES, IOWA - Michael Bennet was about as fired up as he ever gets
   at the Iowa State Fair's Political Soapbox, railing against Bernie
   Sanders' health care plan -- but politely.

   "I respect him because he tells the truth about what's in his plan, but
   I disagree that that's gonna get us universal health care in America,"
   said Bennet, a Colorado senator and decidedly lower tier Democratic
   presidential candidate.

   He prompted boos from the crowd, most of whom were waiting in the heat
   to see Sanders speak shortly after him, but Bennet wasn't too fussed.
   As admirers thronged to the Vermont senator, Bennet went on to tour the
   fair and hop aboard a few rides with his daughters.

   Bennet is pursuing the presidency as the anti-Donald Trump: measured
   and moderate. Contemplative and competent. With the energy in the
   Democratic Party radiating from the left and the president so often
   shouting from the right, Bennet's journey has been a lonely road.

   But he insists he won't change course.

   "If we are forever trapped in a world of instantaneous celebrity that
   is driven by social media, it may be that I'm not the person for that
   time," he said in an interview. "But just like with many other things,
   I prefer not to think that we're living in a permanent state of a
   broken-down political system that won't deliver on all the promises
   these candidates are making."

   Bennet's odds of winning the Democratic presidential nomination are as
   long as his thoughts are deep.

   His new book is his version of an urgent call to arms to restore
   American democracy and no one's idea of a bestseller.

   And yet, Bennet is tying his candidacy to perhaps the most audacious
   proposition of all, that voters may actually crave the opposite of the
   relentlessly turbulent tenure of Trump.

   He made that pitch explicit in a tweet, pledging, "If you elect me
   president, I promise you won't have to think about me for 2 weeks at a
   time. I'll do my job watching out for North Korea and ending this trade
   war. So you can go raise your kids and live your lives."

   James Carville, a top strategist on both Bill and Hillary Clinton's
   early presidential campaigns, is bullish on Bennet because he believes
   that "the way to beat Trump is to be as profoundly different from Trump
   as you can be."

   "Just be nice, be calm, get out of everybody's face," he said. "If the
   country is looking for the most unlike Donald Trump person, I think
   Michael Bennet is that person."

   Carville said he's spoken to other Democrats who believe Bennet would
   make the best president out of any candidate in the field. Carville
   said he would make an even better nominee than Joe Biden because "he'd
   be new, different, younger and ... could project forward."

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