Actually, Dean Phillips hasn't broken any DNC rules. ...yet.

A quick look at the sequencing of penalties under the DNC rules for 2024

Last week, after seemingly exhausting all other options, Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips declared a run to unseat President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024.

The move, coupled with his filing in the New Hampshire presidential primary, drew a lot of reactions. Colleagues were confused. Constituencies within the broader Democratic Party coalition pushed back. And others wondered what impact, if any, Phillips’ entry would have on the primary campaign, not to mention a fall general election race that many at this time, a year out, anticipate being close.

But there has also been chatter about how, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. before him, Phillips is embarking on a bid that accentuates New Hampshire, a state the Democratic Party in which appears poised to thumb its nose at the national party’s attempts to nudge it out of its typical place in the process as the first-in-the-nation primary. The national party’s maneuvering on the 2024 calendar, Granite state Democrats’ reaction and Phillips’ subsequent filing all intersect in ways that leave one to wonder exactly how this may all play out. After all, due to the former, the actions of the latter two carry some penalties. And those penalties — those on the state party and the candidates — affect just how much New Hampshire may matter in the context of the race for the 2024 Democratic nomination.

However, as with the primary calendar, there is a sequence to all of this, and at this point, the process has not gotten much further along than “the national party has finalized its rules for the cycle.” So let’s discuss that sequence.