Contemplating a New Hampshire campaign event to which not one voter showed up, the Minnesota congressman and Democratic presidential hopeful Dean Phillips told reporters on Tuesday: “Sometimes, if you build it, they don’t come.”
He was alluding to a famous line from Field of Dreams, a 1989 film in which an Iowa farmer played by Kevin Costner builds a baseball field, thereby attracting the ghosts of famous players.
Phillips is widely held to have a ghost of a chance of succeeding in his quest to deny a sitting president, Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nomination. Nonetheless, the 54-year-old centrist, who is self-funding his campaign, insists Biden is too old at 81 to mount a meaningful fight against Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee.
In Manchester, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, Phillips parked his “Government Repair Truck” – a tested campaign prop – outside a Hilton hotel, planning to talk to voters while handing out Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, a staple for New Englanders, notably including Ben Affleck.
Unfortunately, reports of sparsely or non-attended campaign events are a staple of presidential primary campaigns.
According to NBC News, no one showed up to chat with Phillips in part because the temperature was below freezing, thereby sending drivers to an underground parking garage from which they could enter the hotel.
Phillips “ended up pouring coffee for the staffers who were there”, NBC said, adding that the candidate made his Field of Dreams quip to reporters.
Biden is not on the ballot in New Hampshire, thanks to a dispute between the state and national Democrats who reconfigured their primary to start in South Carolina.
The focus of the Republican race will switch to New Hampshire next week, after Monday’s Iowa caucuses. Trump leads in the north-eastern state, though the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has eaten into his advantage.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Reuters published an interview in which Phillips once again rejected the contention that he risks damaging Biden and thereby boosting Trump.
He also declined to rule out a third-party run for president, notionally on a ticket with Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman whose opposition to Trump cost her a seat in the House.
“I wouldn’t say that’s even discussed right now,” Phillips said. “But I never say never.
“I mean, this is about preservation of democracy. We are certainly different, politically. But we do have the same principle. And that is protecting the constitution, ensuring our systems of governance work and restoring some degree of sensibility and common sense to Washington. So I want to help her do that. And I think she wants to help me.”
