Another Person Team Biden Doesn’t Want to Discuss

White House ally Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.) tells NBC that the possibility of Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.) entering the presidential race “doesn’t have me nervous.” Sure it doesn’t. Mr. Phillips would be the first establishment politician and the first openly non-kooky candidate to challenge Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.

Reid Epstein reports for the New York Times :

Representative Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat who has for months been saying in public what many in his party only whisper in private — that the 80-year-old President Biden should not seek re-election because of his age — said he was considering challenging Mr. Biden in next year’s primary...

An heir to a Minnesota liquor fortune who showcased himself driving a gelato truck in his first House campaign, Mr. Phillips has been known in Congress for embracing the moderate suburban politics that were at the core of the general election coalition that propelled Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory.

The term “moderate” is the standard media description of Mr. Phillips, but voters should understand the context. Among Democratic members of the U.S. House from the Minneapolis area, the moderates are the ones who don’t regularly express contempt for America and her friends.

The point is that left-wing primary voters can find plenty to like about Mr. Phillips, who despite his time in the family business has sometimes seemed uncertain as to whether his family should be free to run it. In 2021, Jim Saksa reported in Roll Call:

A pair of House Democrats with C-suite experience launched a Stakeholder Capitalism Caucus this month, embracing an economic concept that Republicans have increasingly railed against as “woke” capitalism.

The new caucus will advocate for policies that will encourage U.S. businesses to more broadly share the wealth they create and deploy American ingenuity to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges, said co-founders Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania.

“We’ve long emphasized the right of business to make a profit, of course, but not the right of workers to share in those earnings — that success — that they help generate,” Phillips said at a launch event Friday.

“As we look to rebuild our economy in the wake of a very devastating pandemic, we must look to reimagine it,” Houlahan said. “Our environment, our national security, our economy, our health care — they’re all greatly threatened by the inaction that we’ve had on climate change.”

On second thought, in fairness to Mr. Phillips, the idea that “stakeholders” with no stake in a business should be able to use companies owned by someone else to advance political agendas rejected by voters actually is kind of kooky.

Left-wing voters will also be pleased to learn that Mr. Phillips has been opposed to the 2017 Trump tax reform since he first ran for Congress.

In any case, Team Biden has been treating Mr. Phillips just like the other oddballs. Mr. Epstein notes for the Times:

The Biden campaign and the D.N.C. have so far declined to comment about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson, who began their own primary campaigns against Mr. Biden this year. Officials from both the D.N.C. and the Biden campaign declined to speak about Mr. Phillips.

Phillipsmania ignited on Friday when Jonathan Martin reported for Politico:

U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota moderate, has been receiving inquiries about his willingness to challenge Biden and is going to New York City next week to meet with Democratic donors about such a race, I’m told.

Phillips, who’s in his third term representing suburban Minneapolis, has drawn attention from contributors by both denouncing the “No Labels” attempt to field a third-party ticket and calling for a contested Democratic primary next year. A former executive, he’s also the sort of pro-business social moderate with private sector experience who corporate leaders usually pine for in a presidential candidate.

There’s that “moderate” label again, and Mr. Phillips likely won’t complain since he’s on record opposing “No Labels.” But attacking the rights of shareholders and opposing a landmark corporate tax rate reduction is “pro-business”?

Regardless of the label, Mr. Phillips could make this race very interesting. Mr. Martin reported on Friday:

Phillips, 54, is highly unlikely to mount a primary challenge unless Biden’s health worsens or his political standing drops precipitously, I’m told, and does not want to further weaken the president. Yet he remains convinced that Democrats need a robust conversation about who to nominate and recognizes that the more obvious would-be challengers in the party will not get in unless somebody else first breaks the political ice — much as his fellow Minnesotan, former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, did against Lyndon Johnson in 1968. (Phillips declined to comment for this column.)

McCarthy’s candidacy eventually helped drive Johnson from the race and, yes I know Biden allies, Republicans reclaimed the White House that fall.

As for the reason for a potential primary challenge in 2024, Joey Garrison reported in August of 2022 for USA Today:

For the first time, a Democratic member of Congress last month publicly pushed for a new 2024 nominee instead of Biden. U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., said “the country would be well-served by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats to step up.”

It will be interesting to see how many Democratic donors step up to welcome Mr. Phillips to New York.

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Meanwhile in the Race for the Republican Nomination
In Shane Goldmacher’s report in the New York Times, one voter offers his analysis of former President Donald Trump :

“He might say mean things and make all the men cry because all the men are wearing your wife’s underpants and you can’t be a man anymore,” said David Green, 69, a retail manager in Somersworth, N.H., said of Mr. Trump. “You got to be a little sissy and cry about everything. But at the end of the day, you want results. Donald Trump’s my guy. He’s proved it on a national level.”

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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival” and also the co-author of “Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi.”

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