Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) acknowledges a guest in the audience during a campaign stop, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023, in Manchester, New Hampshire. Charles Krupa/AP
Phillips merits praise challenging Biden when other Democrats cower
Washington Examiner November 04, 12:01 AM November 04, 12:01 AM Video Embed
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) is doing his party and nation a favor by challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. Biden is doddering, radical, corrupt, and incompetent. He should not be on the general election ballot.
It is a black mark against other Democrats that none have had the political courage to challenge such a bumbling president even as polls show him unpopular with his own party’s voters. Polls that report “approval” ratings don’t capture what a more direct question does: Asked this fall if they think the Democratic Party should renominate Biden or choose somebody else, 67% of Democratic-leaning voters chose “a different candidate.”
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Under Biden’s non-leadership, inflation and interest rates have soared, the national debt has grown astronomically, hordes of potentially dangerous illegal immigrants have swarmed across our borders, the U.S. has been embarrassed in Afghanistan while war and worldwide threats have raged, and violent crime has run rampant on streets. And as he approaches his 81st birthday this month, Biden has declined both physically and mentally. It is wildly irresponsible for a major political party to ask voters to keep him in the Oval Office until he is 86 years old.
Phillips recognizes these basic realities. Rather than being driven by outsize personal ambition, he spent months urging other serious Democrats with bigger national profiles to challenge Biden. Only when nobody accepted the challenge — a winnable challenge, but one the party would harshly punish — did Phillips run himself.
Phillips’s policies are awful; he is far too left-wing. His voting record shows an embrace of most of the woke social agenda, overspending, obeisance to the “green” agenda, opposition to gun rights, and political servitude to public sector and education unions that coddle bad employees while betraying students. As only a third-term member of Congress, Phillips lacks seasoning or leadership.
But he is more moderate than his voting record suggests. As a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, he talks with, listens to, and tries to find common ground with Republicans, particularly on low-profile issues. The Lugar Center-McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University lists him as the 13th most “bipartisan” member of the 435-member House.
He sounds less like socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) than like a liberal supply-side Republican vice presidential nominee of old, the late Jack Kemp, or communitarian conservative former Sen. Ben Sasse. He speaks readily of “liberty,” “opportunity,” and “individual initiative.” Encouragingly, he also rails against “chaos on our border.”
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Phillips cites as his “hero” the late vice president and fellow Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey, who was too liberal but a good man, a patriot, and an upbeat campaigner rather than a slash-and-burn politician. Public life could use more of that.
People of all political persuasions should welcome Dean Phillips to the presidential race, not for his policies or chances of success, but for trying to shake it out of its lethargy and apparently inexorable progress toward a choice few voters want. He is far from the best candidate for the White House, but is a breath of fresh air compared to the tired, old, angry, left-wing Democrats who have led his party in the Clinton-Sanders-Biden era. By offering a thoughtful alternative to Biden, Phillips is providing a public service.
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