yankel berel, perhaps I wasn’t clear enough earlier.
You wroteDaniel never started. Therefore, he never failed. And therefore, he could still [at least according to one pshat in sanhedrin] be a candidate for mashiach.
As RAMBAN and RAMBAM point out, starting the ge’ula process and then, dying & leaving unfinished business, equals failure
My argument with the above is that you write that the Ramban and the Rambam reject a dead person being Mashiach ONLY IF that person started the process and died leaving it unfinished. Therefore, Daniel who died without having started the process of geulah could be resurrected and be Mashiach.
But you don’t cite a source for that!
It seems to me that you came to the conclusion that there is this difference because the Ramban and the Rambam reject a dead person’s candidacy, while the gemoro in Sanhedrin, according to one explanation of Rashi (Are we allowed to quote Rashi nowadays in this thread, or have certain fanatics ruled him persona non grata c”v?) allows the possibility that Daniel is Mashiach. But that gemoro is not something that is brought lehalocho by the Ramban or the Rambam, and we don’t even know how they interpreted that gemoro. Don’t forget that even Rashi has an alternative explanation which does not allow Daniel himself to be Mashiach.
Therefore, the simple pshat in the Ramban and the Rambam is that someone who has died cannot be Mashiach, regardless of what he achieved in his lifetime. This would then, apparently, include Daniel.