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Dean Phillips’ presidential bid proving to be ‘a pro-Trump effort disguised as a primary campaign’ [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-12-13  

When Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota first launched his upstart presidential bid in October, many Democratic operatives and strategists wondered: To what end? Time was already running out to get on enough ballots to legitimately challenge President Joe Biden’s campaign. And given that, how could a Democratic challenge to Biden accomplish anything other than inflicting damage on the incumbent’s reelection bid?

Days before Phillips' official campaign kickoff, however, Phillips’ then-adviser Steve Schmidt gave away the game on the campaign's intentions, laying out the strategy to The Atlantic's Tim Alberta. Here's how Alberta summed up the messaging effort:

"[The campaign] would contract talent to work across six time zones, from Manhattan to Honolulu, seizing on every opening in the news cycle and putting Biden’s campaign on the defensive all day, every day."

Upon reading that excerpt, anti-Trumper and veteran Republican campaign operative Tim Miller remarked, "This can only be described as a pro-Trump effort disguised as a primary campaign."

x No matter your view on whether a primary to Biden is useful, the particular strategy laid about by Schmidt to @TimAlberta of relentlessly attacking Biden is insane.



This can only be described as a pro-Trump effort disguised as a primary campaign. https://t.co/DPtpmn3Nfs pic.twitter.com/0lyObncR7h — Tim Miller (@Timodc) October 27, 2023

That assertion is proving prescient as Phillips' campaign careens about, trying to find its footing ahead of New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 contest.

Despite Phillips' original assertion that he hoped to "strengthen" Biden, CNN writes that the campaign is taking a battering ram to Biden's haul.

[O]n 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.

To be clear, the Phillips campaign has some gaping holes in its theory of the case for his presidential bid. Although Phillips has been known as a moderate-minded co-founder of the congressional Problem Solvers Caucus, for instance, he's now hopscotching around the Granite State pushing a Bernie Sanders-inspired "Medicare for All" message.

The campaign is also burning through staffers, according to CNN, with one new hire texting, “I got hired and immediately there were ten fires and somehow each day is the same.”

All that being said, Phillips can still damage Biden's reelection bid despite having effectively zero chance of accomplishing really anything else.

Schmidt himself, a high-profile anti-Trumper and former GOP strategist, parted ways with the campaign because he reportedly wanted Phillips to steer clear of broadsiding Biden so long as the congressman had no path to victory.

One faction that is pleased with Phillips' progress, however, is Team Trump, according to Politico.

After a pro-Phillips super PAC ran ads in New Hampshire touting Trump's relative strength against Biden in some polling, Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita gushed about it.

“Yes, Donald Trump is beating crooked Joe Biden, and we approve this message,” LaCivita quipped.

Whatever quixotic intentions may have spurred Phillips' long-shot bid for the White House—and perhaps continue to fuel it to this day—the practical outcome is clear. Just ask the Trump campaign.

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