Who is Dean Phillips Running Against?

Concord, N.H. — Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips stated his case bluntly to a packed room in the basement of Havenwood Heritage Heights, an assisted living community here:

“I’m running for president because while Joe Biden is a good man, he cannot defeat Donald Trump.”

Phillips and another longshot candidate, Marianne Williamson, are here running hard to win a primary that, according to the national party, isn’t even a primary: Coalesced around reelecting President Biden, the party insisted that New Hampshire move back its usual first-in-the-nation primary this year so it would no longer go first. New Hampshire Democrats refused. They’re going ahead with a primary on Jan. 23. And the national party says it won’t count.

That hasn’t deterred Phillips and Williamson, as I discovered as I followed the on the trail Wednesday for a firsthand look at the effort to have the Democrats put up someone other than Biden in the consequential general election.

The room at Havenwood Heritage Heights was covered in his posters, with one prominently declaring ​“Relieve, Repair, Reimagine.” Phillips, a Congressman from Minnesota, wore a dark blue suit with no tie and white sneakers. The youthful look suited him, but by the end of his question and answer session with the residents, I was unsure of who exactly Phillips considered his main opponent as he pursues a longshot presidential primary bid here for the Democratic nomination against an incumbent whom his party has reannointed.

Phillips has a compelling personal story. His father was killed in Vietnam when he was only six months old, and he was adopted by his mother’s new husband into a family that included Dear Abby and Anne Landers. ​“I was a successful businessman until 2016,” he explained. ​“When Trump was elected, I saw the fear in my gay 16-year-old daughter’s eyes. She was scared for her future, and I promised her that I would do something.” When he ran for Congress, he flipped a district that had been in Republican hands for 60 years.

As the evening continued, Phillips made it clear that he was running to preserve democracy in the United States, but he consistently identified the Democratic Party as the main impediment to democracy in practice. He leaned heavily into the feud between New Hampshire and the Democratic National Committee: New Hampshire has long been the first primary held in presidential election years (it has followed Iowa, but that state uses a caucus system), until the DNC passed a new nomination calendar which put South Carolina (a state that salvaged BIden’s 2020 camopaign) as the nation’s first primary. 

The DNC has stated that the change, which was supported by President Biden, gives a more diverse cross-section of voters an early say in the nominating process, but Phillips said he sees a different reason. ​“Biden doesn’t want New Hampshire to be first because he would lose here,” he said. ​“Biden came in fifth here in 2020. He doesn’t want that to happen again.”

Throughout the evening, Phillips — overall a moderate Democrat who has embraced single-payer health care in this campaign — took as many shots at Democrats as he did at Trump. He accused the national party of trying to ​“suppress democracy” by keeping his name off the ballot in Florida and North Carolina. He said that he’d tried to recruit others to run for president before he chose to himself, but that they were ​“afraid” of incurring the DNC’s wrath. 

“The DNC wants this to be the coronation of Joe Biden,” he said. ​“But the Founding Fathers explicitly didn’t want coronations. George Washington warned against the rise of factions, of political parties, because they’d be more concerned with preserving their power than serving the American people. Well, the Democratic Party is working very hard to make me lose so that they can preserve their power.” 

At times, it seemed that Phillips was running against the Democrats more than he was running against Republicans. Which is fine by me; I’m not a Democrat so I don’t really care about the party’s internecine warfare. But I find myself asking the same question I had of Bernie Sanders in 2016: if Phillips is so critical of Democrats, why does he run as one?

The obvious answer is that a third party run is basically impossible to have prevail, and the machinery of the DNC would make a general election campaign far easier. But this calculation smacks of opportunism, and leaves me conflicted about Phillips’ convictions. He literally said that political parties are the problem in American politics. But it seems that’s only the case when they are arrayed against him personally. 

Phillips stated that he’s not a politician, but a businessman like Trump, and that uniquely qualifies him to defeat him in November. His triangulation against the DNC feels very political though, and if the continued success of Trump demonstrates anything, it’s that Americans are wary and weary of politicians. 

In Laconia, A Focus On Trump

Meanwhile, as I saw on Wednesday, Marianne Williamson has one mission: to stop former President Donald Trump from winning a second term.

“Trump is a direct threat to our democracy,” she said while campaigning at the Belknap Democratic Party headquarters here on Wednesday. About 20 people gathered in a one-room basement with folding chairs placed out for the audience. Williamson wore a pale lavender blazer over an otherwise all black ensemble.

She said that Trump is not a normal politician, but neither is she, which makes her the perfect candidate to take him on.

I was at first disappointed to hear her frame the election that way. Everything in the political universe continues to spin around Trump, even as food prices and homelessness soar. I’d already heard Republican candidates center their political ambitions on Trump, and I’d hoped the Democrats would offer something different.

To her credit, Williamson, a spiritualist and author who ran a 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaign as well, did pivot away from the doom and gloom of other candidates. ​“We can’t meet fear with fear,” she said to the audience. ​“We have to offer hope. We have to talk to people where they are noble, not where they are selfish or scared.”

Describing herself as a ​“Roosevelt Democrat,” Williamson laid out a vision of governance equal parts bold and basic. One of Williamson’s major policy proposals is an Economic Bill of Rights. Her proposal encompasses universal health care, free college and loan forgiveness for those with outstanding debt, subsidized child care, a national living wage and affordable housing. She would pay for the programs by repealing the 2017 tax cuts enacted by President Trump, stopping corporate subsidies, instituting a wealth tax and cutting 10 – 20 percent from the defense budget.

“If you’re a worker in this country, it doesn’t matter if you’re on the left or right. You’re getting screwed by the same people,” she said. She blamed a corporatist version of the Democratic Party for the current state of the country. ​“The fascists wouldn’t be on the march if we were doing what the people elected us to do.” 

Another one of her more innovative ideas is to establish a Department of Children, specifically tasked to improve the well-being and educational opportunities of young children. ​“To have a thriving country 20 years from now, we need to focus on the 10 year olds today,” she explained.

In other ways, Williamson sounded like a more standard Democrat. She agreed there is a crisis on the border, and said she wants to couple more resources at the border with more resources to countries where migrants originate from. She supported aid to Ukraine when Russia invaded, although she said it’s time to start negotiations in that conflict. And she professed her love for Israel while calling for an immediate ceasefire leading to a two-state solution. All pretty standard Democratic positions. 

Still, her campaign looks like a longshot at best. She trails Biden by more than 60 points, according to polling.

On a recent phone call, I asked Williamson point blank if she is running some kind of protest campaign, or if her goal is to pull President Biden to the left on the issues that matter to her. 

“If people knew what was truly involved in running for president, they wouldn’t ask me that question,” she said. ​“The insults and assaults you have to endure. Only an insane person would do this just to make a point.” 

Marianne Williamson is running to win as a Democrat. As she points out herself, she’s not even that radical. ​“Every policy position I hold is considered moderate in other advanced democracies.” She may be focused on Trump, but she’s willing to try new things to beat him. We’ll see if New Hampshire’s voters want to give her a shot.