Under-the-Radar Candidates

[Mr. Morden]

Duckworth isn't being talked about because she isn't doing anything to indicate interest.  If Jason Kander wasn't doing things to try to raise his profile, including things that strongly hint at presidential ambition like trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, then no one would be talking about him either.  There are a couple of folks like Sherrod Brown who keep managing to make it onto lists of potential candidates despite not really doing anything to indicate interest, but for the most part the people getting talked about are people who are deliberately injecting themselves into the 2020 presidential conversation.

So when you ask about who is currently "low key" yet might end up being a strong candidate, I read that as "Who currently doesn't seem to be interested, yet might change their minds, and if they do run would have a decent shot at the nomination?"

[Mr. Morden]

I do actually think Feingold is an interesting possibility.  I know people say it can't happen because of his loss in the Senate race, but Santorum got obliterated in his reelection bid in 2006, yet came in second place in the 2012 GOP primaries.  Heck, Gingrich came in third that year (at least in the popular vote), despite having been out of office for 14 years and having resigned in disgrace from his last political office.  In both cases, their past electoral failures were barely even brought up.  The voters didn't care.  I don't think many voters care about such things.

It's probably a bigger deal if you're aiming to run an "establishment" campaign, because party elites will be reluctant to back you if you haven't demonstrated electoral success, but if you're running as an "insurgent", then I don't think it really matters.

[Mr. Morden]

Tons of people could make strong runs, none will be serious contenders. The way the Democrats work is too much solidarity among the donor community, theres just no enough cash to spread around.

Isn't that what people used to say about the Republicans?  That they always anointed a single person as their establishment champion?  That seriously broke down in 2008, when consensus on who the establishment frontrunner should be didn't materialize early on, and then this broke down further in 2016.