Democrats freak out
Democrats: Joe Biden is precious and delicate. The Dean Phillips campaign is a disaster!
They can chill out. It's OK.
In fact, it is good.
On March 12, 1968, Democrat Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary election against the incumbent Democratic president Lyndon Johnson. It sent a message so loud that even an incumbent president could hear it inside his cocoon of power, inertia, and affirmation. Johnson saw that a great many people who supported him in the past, now did not. Democratic voters weren't buying what he was selling on the Vietnam War.
I was "Clean for Gene" back then. I wanted McCarthy to do well. McCarthy did not cause a weakness for Johnson. He revealed the weakness. Vietnam wasn't something Johnson -- or Democrats -- could sweep under the rug.
Dean Phillips, candidate for president
By this morning most readers will have heard the news that Dean Phillips, a Biden-supporting Democratic U.S. Representative from Minnesota, has filed to run for president in New Hampshire. I am not there to record it, but he would have stood at this desk amid cameras, given the New Hampshire Secretary of State $1,000, and signed an affidavit swearing he was a Democrat. He will be on the ballot.
Biden and the DNC decided to game the nomination system and arrange that the free-for-all New Hampshire primary will not be the first in the nation primary for Democrats. The Biden/DNC rules forbade candidates filing there if they want their delegates counted. South Carolina must be first, the DNC declared. This decision is part of a larger project to assure Biden would run for re-nomination without opposition. And it worked. The restless Democrats in the on-deck circles could wait, or face repetitional exile among Democrats. The message was driven home to governors Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Jay Polis, Josh Shapiro, Jay Inslee, and senators Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Bob Bennett, and more.
Don't touch Biden. His re-election hangs by a string. Don't weaken him by making him sell himself to Democrats. He can only save the world from Trump if he doesn't have to win any contests.
There is an unsaid message hidden in the Biden/DNC position. It is that Biden is fragile, not strong. That implied message hurts Biden.
Dean Phillips decided to break the code of silence. He praises Biden. He says Biden has done a fine job. It is rather similar to the campaigns being run by DeSantis, Haley, Scott, and Ramaswamy. They are all younger, less baggaged versions of the person they want to replace. Dean Phillips has an advantage here. Republicans who love Trump are in love with Trump, the person, the personality, the Trump-specific schtick. Democrats respect and like Biden. Biden served an important need, and still does. But Biden does not lead a cult of personality.
Dean Phillips will be an opportunity for Democrats who now tell pollsters that they want an alternative to Biden to say so at the ballot box. If Biden is indeed loved enough to beat Trump in a general election, we will learn something useful in New Hampshire. Phillips does not intend to draw blood or give sound bites to Republicans. But he gives Democrats a chance to vote what they say they want -- someone new.
Write-ins for Biden will send a welcome message to Biden supporters. It might happen. If it does not, then it is better Democrats learn it now, not in November, 2024. Biden wants a coronation. Biden can win a coronation, of course. But November will be a knife fight, and his fitness for office will be a central question in front of voters. This is a chance for Biden to prove-up. Biden should embrace the contest, and win it.
If he does not prove up, then I expect a period of Democratic chaos. I do not fear a wide-open Democratic convention, with delegates hearing from several viable candidates. It might put some excitement into the Democratic race. And the victor would stand up against Trump and a Republican party that nominated the same old baggaged-up Trump. And possibly it will be Biden who would have emerge from that chaos, stronger because he will have been chosen.
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Tomorrow: The Easy Sunday post will be links and excerpts from smart people who write that I am dead wrong.