Advice to U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. Do not let the Democratic Party force you out of running for president. Leave the 2020 race for the White House only when you want to do so.

So what if you fail to score more than 2 percent in the public opinion polls and do not raise a requisite amount of campaign cash? That only knocks you out of an upcoming round of Democratic sponsored television debates in September. You can still qualify for the October debates. And it will not force you out of the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, or any of the other state presidential primaries and caucuses that determine the party nominee.

Iowa and New Hampshire election laws determine who gets on the presidential caucuses and primaries election ballot in those states. It is the same in all 50 states. Every American has the right to run for president. Usually you prove you are a qualified citizen and pay a registration fee – and you are on the primary ballot in every state you file in.

We understand that the Democratic Party wants to limit the number of candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. They have been fearful that an oversupply of qualified candidates will split the vote widely and perhaps permit an underqualified or extremist candidate to get the nomination, thus putting victory in the November general election in doubt.

But we dislike giving up the notion that anyone can run for president in the United States, and that they can only be eliminated from the race by election results. The voters in early caucuses and primaries should end the Bennet campaign for the Oval Office, not the party bureaucrats at the Democratic National Committee.

Be assured we would be just as critical of the Republicans if they were trying to eliminate candidates for the GOP nomination by setting arbitrary polling and fund-raising standards for getting in Republican sponsored presidential candidate television debates.

Sen. Bennet: we agree with your criticism of the Democratic Party for setting debate entrance standards – polling and fund-raising standards – that favor old, established members of the Democratic Party who have previously run for president and been around Washington, D.C., for a long time. It is a system that shuts out party newcomers with fresh and moderating ideas that might really prove appealing to general election voters in November.

“The DNC process is stifling debate,” you said, “at a time when we need it most.” You’re right – and this process has come too early for an election that is 14 months away.

It will take courage to stay in the race if and when the Democratic Party forces you out of these early Democratic Party presidential television debates. The pressure will be on to “be a good guy” and tacitly accept the party’s stratagem for eliminating multiple candidacies. But there are many other ways to make news on television, and the door will be open in both Iowa and New Hampshire – and beyond – for you to use personal campaigning in kitchens, local restaurants, and neighborhood barbecues to win those crucial early votes.

We see the Democratic Party trying to eliminate one of the great traditions of U.S. presidential politics. This is where a lesser-known governor or U.S. senator starts campaigning early in Iowa and New Hampshire and, on caucuses or primary day, scores a surprise victory and becomes automatically a major contender for president.

Jimmy Carter, a governor from Georgia, did that in 1976. Unnoticed by the national press and party leaders, he built determined personal campaigning into a surprise Iowa caucuses victory. He built on that lead and confounded all the experts by being elected president that year.

It has happened in the Republican Party as well. Patrick Buchanan, an outspoken conservative, stunned the experts in 1996 by winning the New Hampshire primary over front-runner Robert Dole. For the next month it looked as though Buchanan would wrest the nomination from Dole, although Dole won the nomination in the end and then lost the general election to Bill Clinton.

We see a disconnect between the Democratic Party requirements for staying in the party television debates and the reality of the caucuses/primaries nominating system. The Democratic standards are set by national polling and national fund raising, but the only early votes that count are in Iowa, New Hampshire, and so forth. National performance standards should not be used to force presidential candidates out of what is essentially a state-based nominating system.

The party rules have effectively forced out at least twelve of the 25 or so declared candidates. Many analysts believe that the Democratic nomination race has evolved to a three- or four-person race in which the frontrunner, Joe Biden, is vulnerable if venerable, with two-leftish New England runners-up, Sanders and Warren.

So we call on Colorado’s U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, now the only Coloradan in the Democratic Party presidential nomination sweepstakes, to stay in the race, graciously not participate in those Democratic national television debates, and concentrate his electoral fire where it really counts – in Iowa, New Hampshire, and so on.

Bennet is not the only moderate, aside from Biden, still in the race. Pete Buttigeig, the learned mayor of South Bend; Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota; and Beto O’Rourke of Texas (who is doing a good job of impersonating Robert Kennedy) are still in contention. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock should also be considered.

Bennet will have to run a perfect campaign from now on, and he will have to announce more appealing plans on how he would be a better president than Donald Trump,

Still, we believe he is as attractive as any of the other moderates in the contest. Stay Michael, stay.

Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy are retired political science professors who were longtime members of the faculty at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.