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Saturday, July 30, 2022

Strib local content: Minnesota U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips said he doesn't want Joe Biden to run for president again in 2024, one of the first Democrats in Congress to bluntly call for him to step aside and for a "new generation" of leadership in the White House. [...] "I have respect for Joe Biden, I think he has — despite some mistakes and some missteps, despite his age — I think he's a man of decency, of good principle, of compassion, of empathy and of strength," Phillips said. "But to answer your question directly, which I know is quite rare, Chad, no, I don't. I think the country would be well-served by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats to step up."

The headline is from two early Strib paragraphs.

The headline says it all. Dean Philips is honest about the "please stand down," but bullshits about Biden's character/record.

That, "... new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats to step up" business sounds great, but there is a Devil in details. Like, who, exactly?

There are many a slip twixt cup and lip. Yes, a good, possibly excellent ticket could be put together. The problems with that, Clyburn, Schumer, Pelosi, Hoyer,  Manchin, Harris, Hakeem Jeffries, Big Oil/Coal, Wall Street, Big Pharma, Military Industrial Complex, billionaires not wanting to be fairly taxed, Big Insurance, you can name the rest.

I still think a Steve Bullock-Cori Bush ticket, or a Jay Inslee-Cori Bush ticket would have several bases touched in terms of geo-diversity, diversity of opinion, racial balance and general basic, sound, decency of each candidate. 

Conservative Dems would have little to shoot at with Bullock or Inslee, while both are multiple notches above Biden, who never was much but a tool of money. Cori Bush, she got rid of the Clay indecency in Missouri politics, while keeping race-balanced, gender-altered clearly improved district representation. She is sincere. She is not Kamala Harris. She is a winner. She is progressive. She is black. She balances a ticket.

Did I say, progressive?

If a progressive at the top ticket spot could survive the previously named impediments, all the better. But it would be a dream and not a reality.

Neither Bullock, Inslee, nor Cori Bush owe any deep pocket force anything. That alone would be refreshing, unique, and a cause to expect establishment killing of the idea of any of the three on a ticket. The party of Rahm Emanuel and Joe Biden simply has not been the party of decency and progress. 

BOTTOM LINE: Dean Phillips, bravo and a most generous hat tip for saying it out loud to the press. Now, we citizens concerned with detail ask: Name names.

Surely not-ready-for-prime-time Kamala Harris - not "the one."

Phillips did say, "... new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats to step up." That means not letting Jim Clyburn (or either Clinton) have any say in things; Clyburn's simply not amenable to "well-prepared, dynamic" anything. Else excellent Barbara Lee would be holding the leadership spot in the House that went to smooth Hakeem Jeffries. The Clintons? Becoming multimillionaires as nothing beyond smooth, opportunistic career politicians says it all about the Clintons. Speeches to Goldman Sachs, travel in Epstein's airplane.

There is just too much top-down mediocrity in the Democratic Party to have much hope that Phillip's postulated "... new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats" can step up, without being unceremoniously stomped down hard by old guard fossilized bought indecent idiocy.

Gavin Newsom? Get real - Just say no to chickenshit. At least he'd not be stomped down hard by his own kind.

________UPDATE________

Yes. Gavin Newsom would be a lesser evil to Ron DeSantis. And yes, Gavin Newsome did indirectly tell the world that by running an ad about himself in Florida. But that was grandstanding and not substance. Has Newsom already been anointed by inner party choice? Likely not. But the knives clearly are being sharpened against a Biden second term. 

More info is needed, but Biden might well prove a lesser evil to Gavin Newsom. We have yet to see. San Fran has already given us Pelosi, Harris, and Diane Finstein (courtesy of Dan White). That well may have run dry.