Dean Phillips launched his long-shot Democratic primary bid saying he wanted to “strengthen” President Joe Biden. He talked about not wanting to “demean” or “diminish” the president. He said he wanted to be a mainstream voice, making a broad appeal for a new generation wanting change.
But on his largely self-funded swing last week through New Hampshire, the Minnesota congressman was raising doubts about Biden’s physical capacity and calling the president a threat to democracy in attacks that right-wing media and Donald Trump all feed on, while Phillips zigzagged to the left away from his own voting record.
Phillips says he has earnestly been shocked by what he says is Biden’s “deluded” threat to democracy by running at the risk of losing, how much he now believes the president is not up to campaigning and the way the Democratic establishment he was proud to be a part of is working against the people.
“I’m discovering things that are horrifying me and I’m saying things that are horrifying me,” Phillips told CNN as he sat in a side office in the massive campaign headquarters he opened Saturday on the main stretch in Manchester. “It’s true. It’s not what I intended.”
With a good poll for Biden these days being one in which he is over 40%, Phillips sees himself as like the boy in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” who makes the rest angry by being the only one brave enough to point out problems anyone can see.
But as Phillips has taken to playing Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” at events and asserting, “I am a serious candidate,” his own campaign continues to struggle with just over 40 days before the New Hampshire primary. Florida and North Carolina Democrats canceled their primaries rather than giving him a chance to be on the ballot (he says he is filing lawsuits). Steve Schmidt, the well-known GOP operative who…
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