2020 presidential long shot John Delaney compared the Democratic National Committee’s stricter requirements to qualify for presidential debates to Thanos, the main villain in the Marvel movie series.
Candidates were required to have at least 130,000 individual donors and at least 2% in four DNC-approved primary polls in order to qualify for September’s debate. The deadline is Wednesday. Barring any surprises, ten candidates will be on the stage, which means ten participants from last month’s debates will be left out and Delaney is one of them. Both of the requirements for the upcoming debate are twice that of the previous debates.
The former Maryland Rep. addressed the stricter qualifications during an appearance on MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday.
“It would undoubtedly be better to be on the debate than not to be on the debate,” Delaney began. “But if you look at the first two debates, which we were in, it’s not clear that they mattered at all in terms of how the race really changed, which I think underscores this notion that it’s just getting started. The way the DNC decided to do these debates is they effectively cut out half the field. I don’t think ultimately voters want that to happen.”
He added, “I think they were kind of like Thanos snapping their finger and trying to get rid of half the field, right. That’s really kind of what they did and some of the outcomes don’t make any sense. We have sitting democratic governors who are not in the debate. We have sitting members of Congress who are not in the debate. We need a debate. We need an incredibly important debate about issues that haven’t even been touched on in this primary.”
Thanos is the fictional villain of the Marvel cinematic universe. Throughout the movie series Thanos seeks to obtain each of the six infinity stones. When he reaches that goal in “Avengers: Infinity Wars,” he is able to wipe away half of all of the universe’s living things at a snap of his fingers.
