Dean Phillips is a wealthy third term Congressman from Minnesota who thinks government should be run like a business. He’s challenging Presudent Biden for the Democratic nomination for one reason: Joe’s age. And that is why Dean Phillips is malaka of the week.
My colleague Jamie O wrote a post about Phillips’ potential candidacy at the beginning of the month. My response at the time was: Dean Who? That’s still the case. Dean Who is running for what?
We’re plagued by unqualified and unfit people in our politics right now. Malaka Dean is a third term Congresscritter who hasn’t done anything of substance. All he’s done is call attention to himself. He’s not just a show horse, he’s a pantomime horse:
The stern expression on John Cleese’s face sums up my reaction to the nascent nonsense that is the Phillips candidacy. Shorter Adrastos: Malaka Dean is a horse’s ass.
Politico posted a Phillips primer for the millions of people who know nothing about this obscure backbencher:
“A multi-millionaire gelato tycoon, the heir to one of America’s largest liquor dynasties and the first Democrat to represent Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District in nearly 60 years, Phillips is expected to make his long-rumored presidential campaign official in New Hampshire on Friday, ending months of speculation over his plans for 2024.
He was born Dean Benson Pfefer on January 20, 1969, in St. Paul, Minn. His biological father, Arthur (Artie) Pfefer, was a captain in the U.S. Army at the time of Dean’s birth. Artie was killed in a helicopter crash in the Pleiku province in Vietnam on July 25, 1969 — before he had ever met his son. In March 2023, Phillips visited the site of his father’s death with a U.S. delegation that included actor Woody Harrelson. “It was frightening and exciting, and something I probably could have done much sooner,” Phillips said in an interview about the trip. “Maybe I didn’t have the courage at the time.”
He’s a liquor heir as well as a gelato tycoon? He seems to think he’s a man of many Talentis when he’s really a one-trick pony:
Make that pantomime pony. Dean Phillips is an empty vessel stoked by blind ambition; make that bland ambition.
I’m confused as to why Phillips thinks running on the President’s age is a winning issue. All he’s doing is setting the table for Republican attacks. Many Democrats have concerns about Joe Biden’s age BUT the likely Republican nominee is a 77 year old lunatic who’s more likely to go to jail than return to the White House. Joe Biden should be judged on his record, not his age.
There’s a racist and sexist sub-text to the ageist attacks on Biden. If something happens to the president, he has an able understudy in Vice President Harris. To think otherwise is to fall victim to the bigotry surrounding her job performance. It’s hard standing out if you’re Veep. That was as true for the 48 white males who preceded her as it is for Kamala Harris.
Charlie Pierce aptly summed up the madness of Biden’s challengers:
“If there ever was a time in our history in which our politics is ill-suited to the vague and quixotic, it is this one. The threat to democracy remains very real. One of our two major political parties is being led by a deteriorating maniac who is still conducting a bedlam’s chorus throughout our political institutions. He has real power and no real challengers. Yet the incumbent president does have challengers — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., running on the Free The Viruses ticket, Cornel West, running on the God Knows Why line on the ballot, and now, Rep. Dean Phillips, running as a Democrat because he is convinced that his party can do better than the current president, and that he is the better that his party can do.”
At least Bobby Junior believes in something, however horrendous. As to West, he’s running against Biden from the left, which is where challenges to Democratic presidents usually happen such as Malaka Dean’s fellow Minnesotan Gene McCarthy’s challenge to LBJ in 1968.
Dean Phillips is to the right of Biden somewhere in the mushy middle. He somehow thinks he can finesse the abortion issue:
“He identifies as pro-choice, though he hasn’t always been clear about his stance on abortion rights. In 2017, he reportedly told a group of voters, “I’m pro-life. And I’m also pro-choice. And I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. I think it’s really important to be both. And I celebrate both.”
Really, Dean? That’s the best you can do?
One of Malaka Dean’s talking points is madness in the wake of the disastrous Trump regime:
“He also pitched his business acumen as a major selling point for voters: “I’d like to bring some of the business principles, the fiscal responsibility that I appreciate in the Republican Party, to Democrats,” he said. “
I guess he hasn’t been paying attention. The Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility. The last three Democratic presidents have cleaned up messes left behind by their Republican predecessors. As a liquor heir and gelato tycoon, Dean surely dug the Reagan-Bush-Trump tax cuts; none of which had anything to do with fiscal responsibility.
The last thing the country needs right now is someone pledging to run the government like a business. I suspect Malaka Dean’s businesses are better run than those of the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian, but that’s not saying much.
You would think that being held hostage at the Capitol by Dipshit Insurrectionists would make the Dean of Malakatude understand that the threat to democracy is real. Instead, he’s letting the Conventional Wisdom guide his thinking such as it is. The sub-text to all the inside the beltway blathering about Biden’s age is that he’s boring and not as good a story as the Kaiser of Chaos. I’ll take a normie over a nut job any day.
I threw away my crystal ball when I was sitting political shiva over the 2016 election. I am, however, willing to predict that Dean Phillips will NOT be the Democratic nominee in 2024. But I’m worried about the damage he can do while ego tripping. And that is why Dean Phillips is malaka of the week.
The last word goes to the Dean of Malakatude’s fellow Minnesotans, The Jayhawks. Dean is no angel, but his campaign is a dead end:
Follow the money!! Kennedy and West were not doing enough to hurt Biden and went independent, so the dark money folks trawled the bottom of the pond for a sitting Dem who would be willing to screw his own party! I think he has said he will resign his seat in Congress while running for Prez so it’s a potential 2-fer to widen a very skinny House majority!! It’s the money! It’s always the money!!
In this case, I think it’s ego. He’s planning to self-finance in the early days. He’s rich enough to do so.
Sorry I confused the issue. Phillips is rich on his own, but Harlan Crow (of Clarence Thomas fame) and other rich non-Dems have been contributing to his campaign coffers for years. That money builds influence with even a rich Dem politician. Just sayin’.
Okay. I knew nothing about Phillips before. But ego is what drives guys like this.