Sen. Michael Bennet to Run for President Despite Cancer Diagnosis

Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) has said he plans to run for president in 2020 as he battles prostate cancer, The Colorado Independent reports. “I’m too busy to really sit back and think about it, and that’s probably the best thing,” Bennet, 54, said of the diagnosis. Bennet told the paper he decided to enter the race after finishing his book, The Land of the Flickering Light, which comes out in June. “The idea was to announce sometime in April,” he added. “That was the plan. We hired some staff. We interviewed people for positions in New Hampshire and Iowa. And then I went for the physical. In my last physical, my PSA was high. They did a biopsy, and it was clear. But this time, it was not clear...Then the question became: Is this still something I wanted to do?” The senator said he’s motivated to run because he’s frustrated that politicians are not talking about the reasons behind the dysfunction in Congress, and how corruption there is a risk to democracy. “I am shocked every day” by how little gets done there, he said. Bennet is fighting the same cancer as former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who underwent surgery and was back on the campaign trail two weeks later.