Ryan takes the plunge. Will he sink or swim?

In politics, timing is everything, which is why Mahoning Valley congressman Tim Ryan’s announcement Thursday he’s running for president is a head-scratcher.

Ryan’s campaign advisers should have known that midnight Sunday was the fundraising deadline for the first quarter, which means the national press is now preoccupied with picking winners and losers.

Here’s how an Associated Press story under the headline “O’Rourke plays catch-up to Sanders, Harris in 2020 cash race” put it:

“A handful of Democratic contenders are touting the amount of money they’ve raised in the first fundraising period of the 2020 primary fight that will last into next spring. The totals for the first quarter, which ran through March 31, are the first measure of how a candidate is faring.”

Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont who ran against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, raised more than $18 million in 41 days between his official campaign launch and March 31, giving him $28 million cash on hand.

U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California raked in $13 million, while former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rouke of Texas reported $9.4 million raised in 18 days.

Against the backdrop of money being the mother’s milk of politics, Ryan’s announcement on the daytime television talk show “The View” prompts this question: Why did he wait this long to enter the race?

In an exclusive interview Monday with The Vindicator’s editorial board, Ryan of Howland, who has served in Congress since 2003, sought to downplay the importance of money this early in the campaign.

Ryan, who discussed his presidential bid with the newspaper’s editors and writers, said his goal is to be included in the national debates scheduled for June and July.

According to Democratic Party rules, the debates will take place over two back-to-back midweek evenings with 10 slots each night. (Ryan is the 16th Democrat to officially announce his candidacy, while there are slew of others who have expressed a desire to run. Heading that list is former vice president and senator Joe Biden.)

According to the Associated Press, candidates have two paths to the stage: They can either achieve 1 percent support in three reputable national or early nominating state polls, or they can collect contributions from at least 65,000 donors, with a minimum of 200 in at least 20 states.

The amount raised doesn’t matter. It’s all about how many voters are contributing.

But the reality of politics in America today is that money is the standard by which a candidate’s viability is determined.

That’s why Sanders’ $18 million in 41 days led the press to conclude, “Bernie really is a front-runner.”

Perhaps it’s unfair to judge Ryan’s candidacy against Sanders’, given that the senator from Vermont had the support of millions of voters in 2016.

But how about Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind.?

Here’s how the Associated Press described him: “ … an unlikely headline-grabber even among a group of lesser-known candidates that includes governors and members of Congress.”

Why has a Democrat whose last name is a tongue-twister and who is virtually unknown around the country become the darling of reporters?

There are 7 million reasons. That’s the amount of money Buttigieg raised in the first quarter. More than that, he has almost 160,000 unique donors, a mark that meets the new grass-roots fundraising threshold the national Democratic Party has set for candidates to qualify for the initial debates in June and July.

To be sure, Ryan has received national exposure stemming from his ill-fated challenges to the powerful speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi of California.

It remains to be seen if such audacious moves have hurt him with rank-and-file Democrats, who credit Pelosi with the party winning a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives in 2018.

During his one-hour-plus meeting with The Vindicator, Ryan explained his appearance on “The View” would give him exposure to millions of viewers.

The reviews of his appearance are still coming in. Unfortunately, his announcement Thursday morning was overshadowed by a New York Times story about the Mueller investigation, and the House’s push for President Donald Trump’s tax returns the past six years.

For Ryan, the next several weeks will determine whether he sinks or swims in the crowded waters of the Democratic presidential primary.