Ink Link Q&A with Dem presidential candidate Dean Phillips

Democratic Presidential Candidate Dean Phillips sat down with Manchester Ink Link Assistant Editor Andrew Sylvia at the Bookery just prior to Phillips’ Manchester recent office opening event. Here’s what Phillips had to say.

How have your experiences been in New Hampshire so far? What are you hearing from folks you’re talking to?

I love it. It is, it’s been the most beautiful, inspiring, optimistic, reinvigorating experience in my whole life. My whole life, I’ve known about the New Hampshire Primary and its kind of iconic in the country, but to be participating in it – to experience it, to understand how deeply Granite Staters take it so seriously and with such conviction; there’s a culture here that I would like to the rest of the country to know about. That’s why it begins here and I’m honoring that tradition. I love it.

One thing in the previous primaries I’ve covered is usually campaigns start around May or June (in the year before the Primary). Obviously, you started later than that, talk to me about how it’s influenced your campaigning.

Late is relative. This was not a campaign that was set up years ago like most are because I did not aspire to this as recently as a year ago because I thought we were in good shape.

I came to the realization that we’re not, that President Biden would likely lose to Donald Trump, that there is a massive disconnect between what’s happening in Washington and their understanding of what’s really going on in the country and the reality, which is a woeful lack of affordability.

So many people suffering and, frankly, the diminishment of peace both at home and abroad, have greatly changed in the last year.

And that’s why we set up this campaign in two and a half weeks – two and a half weeks– and that is unusual for obvious reasons. And that means getting up-to-speed, being introduced to people. We’ve got to do it five times faster than any Presidential campaign in history.

And that’s why starting here is actually really important because it’s the only state in the nation that has this kind of culture of wanting to meet its presidential candidates.

Is it easy? No, it’s not. But you know what? I’ve spent my whole life starting businesses and enterprises most of them successful and we’re going to do the same thing here.

This is entrepreneurship. It’s an American small business startup right now.

So feeling there was absolutely no way to help President Biden get reelected was basically why you jumped in (to the race)?

First off, I hosted fundraisers. I’d hosted a fundraiser for then-Vice president Biden in my home in Minnesota. I campaigned for him. I promoted his agenda as a member of House Democratic Leadership.

And the answer is no, because it became so apparent to me in the last number of months that I see no path to him winning the presidency from Donald Trump, as evidenced by every single poll the most recent of which I think was today’s Wall Street Journal.

The first time that that poll has shown Donald Trump eating Joe Biden, which is the same trend everywhere and his 37 percent approval rating. I believe that his age has created a dynamic where he’s unelectable based on what the country is saying, and I think it’s going to be tragic.

And in the absence of any competition, we are not exercising democracy, somebody had to. And if not me, who? And if not now, when?

Some folks have been saying that you running will actually help President Trump in the general election. What are your thoughts on that? How do you respond to that?

I think that’s a very lazy argument. If I was running as an independent that’s absolutely valid. That’s exactly what Cornell West is doing. That’s what Jill Stein is doing. Theoretically, that’s what RFK Jr. is doing and that’s what Joe Manchin would be doing.

I’m running as a Democrat in the Democratic Primary. There would be a primary because Marianne Williamson is also running. I simply entered it and I think providing an alternative is important. I think my vision is an entirely different generationally from a policy perspective and otherwise to build on what he has done. But take it in much, much more significant directions.

And most of all, the notion of hurting (Biden) is absurd. His numbers and his diminished standing in the country were not because of me; I’m responding to those facts. I believe primaries are designed to make sure that if the incumbent is going to be the coronated candidate, that he or she should be put through the paces. That’s why I encourage him to debate to come out and campaign, but he’s not, and I think it would actually empower him. Let the country see how ready you are to run again at age 81. Are you vital? Are you strong? Do you have the energy? Do you have the vision? Why not let voters decide that.

In the meantime, we’re letting a handful of people make that decision. I think it’s really important when Democrats are demeaning the right for being a threat to democracy, and democrats themselves are doing the same thing, I think the hypocrisy has to be pointed out, and I’m deeply concerned.

Do you feel that the Florida Democratic Party canceled their primary due to a fear for President Biden?

How else could you explain it? How else could you explain in the United States of America, in one of the two major parties, and a hundred and some people within one of those major parties in a big state just deciding that a candidate won an election, rather than having the election.

It’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard in my life and I think the answer is absolutely, because if they weren’t why wouldn’t they just do it?

Could you elaborate a little bit more on how you differ from President Biden, as if you were talking to a voter here in New Hampshire who’s already thinking about voting for President Biden? What would you say to them to win their vote?

So let me start by saying I’m a lifelong proud Democrat, former member of House Democratic leadership, three-term Member of Congress, of course, and the ranking member of the House Middle East Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs and I’m the Vice Ranking Member on the House Small Business Committee.

I respect President Biden. I’ve supported him and his agenda and I helped pass it along with all my fellow Democrats in the House and Senate.

We do have policy differences. There is a horrifying lack of affordability in our country right now that none of the past packages we passed are addressing. There is a housing crisis, a health care crisis and education crisis and a crisis of affordability, relative to the groceries – and even home heating oil here in the Northeast – and people are suffering.

Sixty percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Forty-seven percent, can’t afford a 400-dollar repair and we have an administration telling people “all is well, great GDP growth, great job growth.” It’s not connecting because people are not feeling that and that is a massive difference in approach. I feel our policies are erroneous.

We have to raise the foundation for everybody in this country, 32 percent of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of just one percent. The bottom 50 percent only have two-and-a -half percent of it. If we don’t raise the foundation, either Donald Trump will destroy us if he defeats Joe Biden, and if (Trump doesn’t) it’s going to be economic inequities that do so. I think that’s just the truth. That is a fundamental difference.

At age 81, (Biden) cannot be the man (to deal with this) almost by definition. That brings us to a future, the same future that he referred to last time when he ran saying that he’d be a transitional president and then it would time for a new generation of leaders. That’s my proposition.

War and peace and security. People are suffering from concerns about their personal security, about world security, and about peace; we’re lacking it at home, we’re lacking it overseas. Europe is at war, the Middle East is at war, and I’m deeply concerned. Anybody who’s a parent should be deeply concerned. That’s a massive difference.

The military-industrial complex in this country has overtaken rational common sense thought. The Pentagon can’t pass an audit, and I’m afraid that we are leading with war instead of leading with peace. We need to have the strongest national defense of course, and we will, but it’s got to be complemented with a policy of peace first.

And then we have an artificial intelligence revolution coming down the pipeline right now and a comprehensive either unwillingness or inability, more likely, to conceive a plan to accommodate it. Both, as it relates to regulation, prevent the worst uses of it, and most importantly, to prepare for it.

There’s going to be a massive disenfranchisement of American workers that we can anticipate and I think it’s time to prepare our education system, our economic system and our social safety net, to ensure that we’re ready for it.

So you’re saying you would consider a universal basic income (UBI)?

I think UBI should absolutely be tested.

There’s a bill right now that I’m looking at that’s a pilot program that would put 20 thousand people on that role to test the idea. Because if we do not test UBI now, anticipating the disenfranchisement of this new economy, I think we’re we’re foolish. I’m not saying we need a national UBI program, what I’m saying is we do need a national UBI pilot program and that is the same thing with national health care.

We need a universal health insurance plan in America, we need to build seven million units of housing so that we don’t see men and women sleeping outside at night here at Veterans Park.

And whether that’s in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles or New York, it is a crisis; housing is too expensive, so the only way to bring that cost down is to produce more. Right now, the federal government is not nearly as active as necessary.

Question is how to get all that through Congress. Basically, every senator has their own veto at this point.

They do. But I’ll tell you, having sat down, I do a series at home called Common Ground where we get six Democrats and six Republicans to the table, every six weeks. We talk about healthcare regularly.

There is such a national appetite to do this amongst voters. The problem is, you have the health insurers, and the Pharma companies in Washington, doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to lobbyists, and to campaigns every year to keep that status quo maintained. And I’m saying the quiet part out loud.

I’ve torpedoed, my career, and that’s the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life because I’m going to tell the truth and nobody else is. The country is desperate for it. I do not believe we should be living in a country that allows people to go bankrupt, just from taking on medical debt.

Sixty-six percent of all bankruptcies are from medical debt in this country. That’s not a red or a blue issue, that’s an everyone issue. And I’m going to tell the truth. And that’s why I think there are people in Washington opposed to my truth telling and I’m not surprised.

In pretty much any other race, you could self fund, given your own personal wealth, but probably not in this race, especially since President Biden has outfundraised every Republican candidate combined. If you did advance to the General Election, how would you overcome that?

Because money doesn’t vote. Simple as that. Money doesn’t vote.

The president’s image is fully baked into the minds of Americans. President Trump’s image I think is fully baked into the minds of Americans and frankly right now, (Trump’s) winning. It’s as simple as that.

No amount of money, no amount of new packaging or marketing or messaging is going to change what people think right now. And [the group of those] who are even open to thinking about it a little differently are becoming smaller and smaller and smaller. And that’s why I think it’s time to practice old-fashioned democracy. And that’s what I’m doing right here.

It’s not about the money, It’s not about the machine. It should be about doing this. And if we lose this, if New Hampshire loses this, which is what the president wants. I think it’s tragic, not just for the Granite State, but for the country, and for democracy broadly.

What were your thoughts on speakers at the Eleanor Roosevelt dinner urging people to write in Biden?

I found it to be not surprising. I found it to be a very clear symptom of the broader disease which is a room full of elected people who were, frankly, not listening to the overwhelming majority of their constituents and this entire country and putting their party above people.

And that’s exactly the biggest problem in the country.