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Don’t run, Dean [1]

['More From Author', 'August', 'Doug Rossinow']

Date: 2023-08-15

U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips has strong qualities as a politician and public servant. He is forceful and appealing, he doesn’t hate on anyone, and he has showed intestinal fortitude at important moments. He is the Democrat who finally got over the hump and won a congressional district that long had frustrated his party’s hopes — Minnesota’s 3rd, which includes highly affluent cities like Edina and Minnetonka as well as more middle-class, rapidly diversifying suburbs like Eden Prairie. In a party and a political moment when electability is at a premium — more on that below — Phillips has a strong case to make in a future election cycle as a potential statewide Democratic nominee, whether for governor or U.S. senator.

Don’t throw it all away, Dean.

Phillips is publicly flirting with what would be a doomed and damaging primary challenge to the incumbent president. He is also calling for other, presumably more formidable challengers to jump into the race so that he feels he doesn’t have to. He expresses concern that a coronation of President Joe Biden within the Democratic Party’s nominating process ignores the president’s weak approval ratings and widespread concerns among voters about Biden’s age and frailty, physical and mental. Phillips is sounding an alarm, arguing that Biden might fail against Trump in a rematch of the 2020 race.

Biden’s political infirmities are all too real (more real than any current physical or mental debility, based on available evidence). The prospect of a Trump victory over Biden is equally plain. In 2016, I did not think Trump would win. But I did think he could win, an opinion that was met with disbelief by most of my Democratic friends. It’s true again now.

Yet Phillips does not convince with his argument that a challenge to Biden now would increase the Democrats’ chances of beating Trump. All the historical evidence points to serious primary challenges weakening incumbent presidents running for reelection. Pat Buchanan against George H. W. Bush in 1992, Ted Kennedy against Jimmy Carter in 1980, even the peculiar case of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy (Sr.) against Lyndon Johnson in 1968, when Johnson dropped out rather than fighting to the end — all these stories ended in victory for the out party’s candidate. Recent presidents who ran for a second term and won reelection — Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan — had their hands strengthened significantly by facing no serious primary challengers. A united party is more likely to carry its incumbent to victory.

Many Democrats may have hoped that Biden would serve one term and then bow out. He made no promises. Numerous “establishment” candidates quickly rallied around him after his commanding victory in South Carolina. All those candidates and their supporters ought to have understood at that moment that nominating anyone means a two-cycle commitment, without exception, should the person win the election.

Since Biden is not stepping aside, his party is saddled with him and the better part of political wisdom is for them to make the strongest case for Biden that they can, from now until election day in 2024. That very much includes the verbally able Phillips.

The Democratic Party is more united (and more liberal) now than at any point in my middle-aged lifetime. There are ideological differences, of course. Yet Biden’s capacity to bridge those differences up to now has reflected not only his skills but also his awareness of the shifting winds in his party. With a less faction-ridden party than ever, for all voters (and contributors), the tradeoff between electability and programmatic preferences is smaller than ever.

In other words: Democrats will be wise to consider electability first and last when they begin new nominating contests. This electability-first environment ought to favor someone like Phillips. The only thing he might do to burn his own future in his party is to continue with a quixotic effort to challenge his party’s incumbent president, one that can only damage his party’s 2024 prospects.

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[1] Url: https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/08/15/dont-run-dean/

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