Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumHow Does Obama Feel About Biden's Candidacy? It's Complicated.
Early on the April morning when Joe Biden announced his latest presidential run, Barack Obamas spokeswoman issued a rare statement. The message praised the former vice-presidents knowledge, insight, and judgment, and highlighted the pairs special bond. But it stopped short of endorsing Bidens campaign. Just a few days earlier, Biden had responded to a reporters question about his ideology by categorizing himself as an Obama-Biden Democrat, man, and when he launched his campaign, his political team having discussed the plan with Obamas staff to lean on this message and imagery posted a photo to Instagram of Biden laughing with Obama and plastered Facebook with ads featuring the former president.
Just as those ads were surfacing, however, members of Obamas inner circle were quietly insisting to anyone who asked that the ex-president whos among the most popular public figures in the country, whos not eager to turn back into a political football, and whos also long been loath to publicly wade into intra-Democratic Party fights was highly unlikely to pick sides in the primary at all, let alone so early in a process overflowing with candidates.
One month into Bidens bid, the uncomfortable sense that his wholehearted embrace of his beloved former boss is not entirely reciprocated has only intensified, and is now a central unspoken psychological drama of the early Democratic primary as the former vice-president invokes Barack daily and the former president remains silent. No one doubts that the two men remain extremely close, but their relationship has also always been personally, politically, and philosophically tangled. (One former senior Obama aide whom I asked about it sighed and said, The relationship is steeped in complication. Theyre obviously close, and theres trust. But its complicated.) And while Obamas insistence on neutrality is consistent with his commitment to sticking to postWhite House tradition, it inevitably hits his sidekick of eight years harder than anyone else in the race the former vice-presidents implausible, and uncorroborated, claim that he asked Obama to stay out notwithstanding.
People close to Obama often note that he only rarely weighs in on Democratic primaries at any level, being genuinely wary of overtly handpicking winners. We know, though, what it looks like for him to try and steer a race toward a given candidate from behind the scenes. In public, Obama remained mostly quiet about the buildup to the 2016 election, but late in 2014 he called Hillary Clinton for a talk thats seldom mentioned, and little known, even among leading Democrats now. The pair had already started discussing the upcoming race that spring, but now he had a message for the former secretary of State, according to four senior Democrats briefed on the conversation at the time. You should, at this point, really think seriously about running, he told her. And you should let me know what youre thinking, because youre Democrats best bet at keeping the White House. Meanwhile, Obamas political brain trust was following the presidents lead that fall, his top political adviser David Plouffe visited Clintons D.C. home, privately briefing her on what it would take.
Read more: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/joe-biden-and-barack-obamas-one-sided-embrace.html
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Skittles
(153,150 posts)end of story
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
pnwmom
(108,976 posts)It was known at the time, and the article mentions it, too, that Obama thought Biden was too old to have his own Presidential ambitions, and that that was a plus. He could concentrate more on being Obama's VP.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
msongs
(67,395 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
highplainsdem
(48,968 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Lochloosa
(16,063 posts)Protocol.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
MBS
(9,688 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
melman
(7,681 posts)But not at all surprising.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Cha
(297,154 posts)is not going to endorse anyone in the primary.. he will wait to see who our candidate is.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
good summary Cha!
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
comradebillyboy
(10,143 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
highplainsdem
(48,968 posts)See the first paragraph of this Jan. 25 column.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/democratic-ex-presidents-expected-to-sit-out-2020-primaries.html
But hell, if you need to come up with a new column, why not just ignore what you wrote four months ago, and what everyone understands to be the case, so you can invent "a central unspoken psychological drama"? Even though the invented drama is crap.
Obama is doing what everyone expected him to do.
Biden is doing what he has every right to do, and what he'd be crazy NOT to do.
Btw, you DO realize, don't you, that if Biden downplayed his association with Obama, then his GOP opponents AND his critics in the media and in the Democratic Party would be slamming him for an alleged "repudiation" or "snub" of Obama?
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Cha
(297,154 posts)highplainsdem!
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
MineralMan
(146,286 posts)That's my opinion.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden