Dean Phillips! AHH-Ahhh! Saviour Of Democracy! Dean Phillips! AHH-Ahhh! Just Who The Hell Is He?
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Dean Phillips! AHH-Ahhh! Saviour Of Democracy! Dean Phillips! AHH-Ahhh! Just Who The Hell Is He?
'Now they'll have that bass line going through their heads all day,' I laughed wickedly.
[Link for those confused by the headline. But I bet most people get it — Dok]
US Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minnesota), he’s this millionaire gelato baron guy with lots of name recognition because of the screwdriver and the Milk of Magnesia, and he wants to run for president maybe, says Politico. No, I never heard of him either. Have you? He’s been in Congress for three terms, but if he’s grabbed any headlines, I missed it. He’s been mentioned three times in Yr Wonkette, and two of those have been in Tabs (both times, coincidentally, in news roundups that also included Taylor Swift, but not in relation to Phillips — his loss).
So yeah, Phillips is considering running against Joe Biden just because he thinks it would be good for democracy to actually have another candidate in the Democratic primaries who is actually a Democrat and not Robert Kennedy Jr. And as Wonkette’s Stephen Robinson noted in Tabs, Phillips believes it would be a big mistake to go assuming that Biden will easily defeat Donald Trump simply by being sane, so hey, maybe we should be a bit alarmed?
“In my professional life, both in the public sector and private sector, chilling out has never been a recipe for success in addressing any problem. Thoughts and prayers don’t solve gun violence, they don’t give people homes or food — and chilling out does not make for electoral success.”
Politico reports that Phillips has tried without success to interest other Democrats in running against Biden, pointing to Biden’s age and early polling showing him in a close matchup with Trump. He’s also said he has a “sense that the country is begging for alternatives.”
So it’s looking like he may jump in himself, although as Politico notes, he hasn’t said so for certain. Two of those ubiquitous “people familiar with the discussions” say he’s already told other congressional Dems he plans to run, although a third said that Phillips is “clearly considering it but when asked point blank whether he was running, replied: ‘We’ll see.’”
Beyond the rumors and Prufrockian indecision, Politico says, Phillips has also at least nibbled at the peach of early campaign planning:
[He] has taken several steps in recent weeks toward launching a presidential run, including calling New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley last week and reaching out to several potential staffers about working in New Hampshire.
Among those he’s approached are Steve Schmidt, a former Republican consultant, and Bill Fletcher, a Tennessee-based Democratic consultant, according to a person familiar with the nascent campaign.
None of the bunch, including Phillips, would respond to Politico’s requests for comment.
As Politico points out, New Hampshire is no longer recognized by the Democratic National Committee as the first primary; that’s now South Carolina. But hey, Phillips may decide to be maverick-y in his choice of primaries, why not?
Phillips may opt to skip the new calendar, focusing instead on New Hampshire, which is expected to hold its own unsanctioned primary after losing its first-in-the-nation status. A strong showing there would not net Phillips substantial delegates but it could prove a major embarrassment for Biden.
If Phillips does decide to get into the race for the sake of being in the race, he’ll need to get moving quicklike, since he’s already too late to make the ballot in Nevada, which goes second in the officially counted primaries. He still has until November 10 to get on the South Carolina ballot, and we’re fairly sure that’s not something you can just have ChatGPT take care of like a last-minute term paper.
If he does jump in, he’ll also have an uphill fight to get anyone to associate the name “Phillips” with a presidential candidate and not that goofball ‘80s surrealist comedian with the Anton Chigurh hair and the rambling falsetto delivery, even if that guy spells it with one fewer l. We always liked him.
As for Dean Phillips, we actually had to scroll up while writing this article to even recall his first name, which admittedly may say more about us than about him. Or not.
[Politico]
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Dean Phillips! AHH-Ahhh! Saviour Of Democracy! Dean Phillips! AHH-Ahhh! Just Who The Hell Is He?
Seems to me that Phillips is the Dem version of Youngkin, just swap out a blue vest for the red one.
This isn't commentary on my personal feelings on the issue, but I do get the sense like he does that the country is pining for an alternative to Biden. The problem with the full time negative campaigning against Democrats, is any democratic admin is going to pick up baggage during their administration. Look what they managed to do with decades of smears against the Clintons (who I am no fan of, but whatever, it still was BS esp in Hillary's case). They drag down the opposition in the eyes of the public by pure attrition, no matter the lack of substance.
So he's right, in that sense. However, his run is irresponsible. He's a luxury we cannot afford, because he's wrong that he stands a better chance of beating Trump than Biden. Biden is the incumbent, he has universal name recognition, he can run on his record. Phillips has none of these things.