Less than a year ago, U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips was saying what no other Democratic lawmaker would publicly admit: Joe Biden was too old to serve another term as president, and would lose to Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Phillips, a three-term congressman from Minnesota, mounted a lonely, long-shot primary campaign against Biden that was assailed and mocked by a majority of his party. Some states declined to include him on the ballot. In March, Phillips suspended his presidential bid and endorsed Biden after winning just four delegates.
A few short months later, Biden dropped out of the race amid mounting pressure from Democrats, including Phillips, over concerns about his fitness. What happened next — the quick ascension of Vice-President Kamala Harris as the new nominee, and the explosion of joy and enthusiasm that sparked — has the man once called a “total joke” by his own colleagues feeling like he was right all along.
“I will say that my mission has been vindicated,” he told Global News on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday.
“To see and feel and sense this room over the last few days made this journey all worthwhile.”
The convention has seen massive crowds and raucous energy inside the United Center arena all week. Even Tuesday’s traditional roll-call vote, where delegates officially cast their votes for the presidential nominee, was turned into a party with state-specific song choices and rousing speeches.
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That energy was unthinkable just over a month ago, before Biden dropped out, Phillips said.
“Many of us thought we’d be attending a funeral this week, and it turned into a birth,” he said. “That transition in literally just a few weeks is magnificent.
“I’ve not felt this since 2008 when Barack Obama energized this party, reinvented it in a way that we never thought imaginable. I’m sensing that again right now.”
Phillips has long insisted, dating back to when he was first considering his primary run, that he has no personal animosity against Biden and continues to praise his presidency. He called Biden a “wonderful president” who “saved the country in many ways.”
His position, then and now, was that Democrats need a new generation of leaders to counter Trump.
“He’s a fine man,” Phillips said of Biden. “He’s compassionate, competent, a man I’ve known for some time. But age always wins.”
Those arguments made Phillips a pariah last year and during the primary, when the White House, Democrats in Congress and the Biden campaign insisted Biden was fit to serve another four years.
The congressman also faced blowback for calling Biden a threat to democracy over rule changes by Democrats in New Hampshire and Florida that ensured Phillips and other primary challengers were kept off the state ballots.
In that sense, Phillips said he felt kinship with the notably large number of Republicans and former Trump administration officials who are speaking at the Democratic convention this week.
“I know what it feels like to be dismissed by your own tribe,” he said.
“It’s not easy for these folks to appear on this stage — past relationships that are probably quite complicated and a lot of animosity from the far right directed at them. That’s courage, and there’s too little of it.”
None of the delegates who were previously pledged to Phillips voted for him in the final roll call. Phillips has endorsed Harris and said Wednesday he supports her as the nominee.
As much as he gives credit to Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for the mood shift among Democrats, Phillips said he feels what’s happening is bigger than them.
“It feels more like a movement,” he said. “That’s probably the most unanticipated thing that Joe Biden never had.
“I’m glad (he dropped out). He made the right choice. I wish it had been earlier, but in a strange way it may have been this magical and bizarre twist to the story that it happened so close to the convention. Because I think that wave that is kind of beginning now might peak at the right time.”
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