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Democratic congressman Dean Phillips is challenging President Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary. And you thought you had never heard of Mike Johnson before, right?
Primary opponents to sitting presidents are rarely ever real threats to winning the nomination, but they have softened incumbents throughout history to help make them one-term presidents.
Eugene McCarthy received 42 percent of the New Hampshire primary in 1968 as an opponent to President Lyndon Johnson, who was weakened by the Vietnam War. McCarthy didn’t win but his level of support was a clear sign the president was in trouble. It was big enough for Robert Kennedy to jump in the race which pushed Johnson to withdraw. After the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the Democratic Party nominated Hubert Humphrey and we got President Richard Nixon.
Another Kennedy challenged a sitting president in 1980, this time it was Teddy versus President Jimmy Carter, who had low approval ratings because of the economy and the Iran hostage situation. Kennedy did not defeat Carter but did win multiple states. Kennedy’s challenge received lots of credit and blame for giving us President Ronald Reagan.
President George H.W. Bush, who also had low approval ratings for a recession so bad that winning a war didn’t help him, was challenged by conservative political pundit Pat Buchanan for the Republican nomination in 1992. Buchanan failed to win even one primary but his race was still enough to soften up President Bush, along with the independent campaign of billionaire lunatic (thank God that never happened again) Ross Perot, to give us President Bill Clinton.
Donald Trump was also a one-term president (sic) but not because he had a primary opponent. He was just a very shitty god-awful truly horrible president (sic).
Now, President Biden is being challenged in a primary, first by, guess who….another Kennedy. Though he’s since dropped out of the primary to challenge as an independent, Robert Kennedy Jr. is threatening to take votes away from the president in the general election. In the primaries, he gets Dean Phillips, who may not be that much of a threat because he’s lacking the one thing all those other challengers had. Name recognition. Also, he’s jumping into the race so late that he doesn’t have time to qualify for several states’ primaries. Some of the qualifying deadlines have already passed. You’re not much of a threat if you can’t get on the ballot.
Taylor Swift would be a greater threat to President Biden but fortunately, I believe instead of challenging him, she’s going to vote for him.
President Joe Biden has very low approval ratings despite being a great president. Fortunately, the Republicans are set to help him out by nominating the worst president (sic) in American history to be his general election opponent.
Creative note: I hope this is my last Taylor Swift cartoon for a while. I thought I was done with her after the last one but my editor asked to see something on Phillips’ challenge to Biden. I threw this at him and ended up having a pretty easy day.
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