Farewell, Jim Gilmore: the hopeless Republican presidential hopeful

Jim Gilmore has finally dropped out of the presidential campaign – and American democracy is better for it.

The one-term governor of Virginia ran a narcissistic, quasi-delusional campaign, under the premise that a virtual unknown last elected to state office in 1997 could somehow be elevated to the presidency.

Being a quasi-delusional narcissist is not a necessarily a flaw in American politics. No entirely normal person can devote years of their lives to the proposition that they are the most qualified person in more than 300 million to lead the free world. The odds are always long.

After all, what could have seemed more narcissistic than Rick Santorum running for the White House in 2012 after a blowout defeat for re-election to the US Senate? Or, this cycle, what could have appeared more delusional in early 2015 than Bernie Sanders’ belief that a septuagenarian socialist who had never been a Democrat could seriously challenge Hillary Clinton for that party’s nomination?

Gilmore’s sin was not an excess of ego. It was a total lack of a work ethic. He barely campaigned, he did not raise money and he had no political organization. As the Washington Post noted in September, for more than a month after declaring his candidacy he did not hold a single campaign event.

In state after state after state, his campaign missed ballot deadlines. The most press coverage he generated outside of debate appearances was when bored political reporters spearheaded a drive to get him verified on Twitter.

And yet the former governor could not be accused of being a political neophyte. He had also been Virginia attorney general and chair of the Republican National Committee. He had already mounted a presidential campaign, in 2008, a year in which Mark Warner dealt him a crushing defeat for the US Senate. He knew what he was getting himself into.

What he wasn’t doing was running for president.

Gilmore engaged in a epic vanity project. With a resume that met the eyeball test for a presidential candidate, he could garner national television time and participate in undercard debates, be sought by reporters seeking color and bask in the attention that comes even to a fifth-tier hopeful.

The problem was that in a debate, every minute in which Gilmore spoke was a minute taken away from more credible candidates.

In the last undercard debate in which Gilmore participated, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, he faced Santorum, Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee. Those three ran dogged campaigns, raising money and building organizations of loyal supporters who devoted months if not years of their lives to their cause.

Huckabee and Santorum – former Iowa winners – visited all 99 counties in the state. Gilmore simply showed up. On caucus night, 12 Iowans supported him. For scale, in the 2012 caucus, 23 Iowans wrote in for Sarah Palin.

There is a place for candidates engaging in the political process as a joke or simply to address some deep-seated psychological issues. Who doesn’t enjoy interacting with Vermin Supreme, the perennial candidate who wears a boot on his head and promises a free pony for every American?

But such candidates are not allowed to deprive serious candidates the chance to make their case. Despite his resume, Gilmore is Vermin Supreme without the boot.

There is, though, a second difference between Gilmore and Vermin Supreme. With 265 votes in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Supreme did almost twice as well as Gilmore did in the Republican vote. He only mustered 134 supporters.