Barack Obama is worried. Joe Biden’s re-election team is, according to him, too soft and does not take the Donald Trump threat seriously enough. During one of his regular lunches with the president, he encouraged him, according to a leak in the Washington Post, to strengthen its organization. He advised him to relocate all his campaign officials to headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. So far, Biden’s closest advisers have remained in Washington, some 170 kilometers from this nerve center. However, this slows down decision-making. Barack Obama gave as an example his 2012 campaign, during which several of his advisers settled in Chicago, the headquarters of operations.
He also recommended that she seek advice from former members of her team. A few days later, his wife Michelle said in a podcast interview that the presidential election was keeping her up at night: “I’m terrified of what could potentially happen. We We cannot take democracy for granted.” In short, the Obamas are making themselves heard. “It’s not an accident that the couple expressed their fears about the future of the country at the same time. It’s certainly coordinated,” said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf.
Obama-Biden: a complicated relationship
They are not the only ones to be alarmed. Joe Biden’s approval rating has plunged below 40%, a level lower than those of his predecessors during the same period. Inflation remains high, young people shun him, as do Arab-American voters, furious at his support for Israel. “Democrats are frustrated. They believe the White House is misselling its reforms and has not effectively responded to questions about Biden’s age or the negative perception of black voters and young people towards the president “, explains George C. Edwards III, professor at Texas A&M University.
The unfailing optimism displayed for months by the Biden campaign team accentuates the frustration. We must not take into account the polls ten or twelve months before the election, because they have no value, she repeats. Biden’s popularity will rise when Americans become aware of the Trump danger; the right to abortion and the economy will work in her favor, she believes. After all, in 2020, the president’s staff is reassured, no one gave him a chance during the primaries, and, in the mid-term elections (midterms) in 2022, he was also underestimated. The ironic title of the front page of New York Magazine in December, accompanied by a photo of the campaign headquarters, sums up the feeling of the moment: “The calmest Democrats in the country.”
Barack Obama, then president of the United States, comforts Joe Biden, then vice-president, on June 6, 2015 in Wilmington, during the funeral of Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer
© / afp.com/YURI GRIPAS
Given Barack Obama’s immense popularity, the leak of his private remarks to the Washington Post weighs. “It aims to shake up the team,” continues Hank Sheinkopf. Biden must manage multiple crises, two wars and the economy, while campaigning… To do this, he must surround himself with experienced people. However, today, vagueness reigns: we don’t even know who is directing operations.”
Obama and Biden have always had a complicated relationship. Their relations were cordial during their eight years of collaboration at the White House. But that didn’t prevent tensions between their teams. Obama’s advisers mocked the vice-president, whom they saw as a boring, bumbling old politician. Opposite, the pro-Biden found the occupant of the Oval Office cerebral and arrogant. Above all, they were angry with him for having chosen Hillary Clinton as runner-up in 2016. Joe Biden, who was also running for the White House, wrote in his Memoirs that “the president was not encouraging” when he broached the subject .
During the 2020 primaries, they also criticized him for refusing to publicly support his candidacy. And to lack enthusiasm when Biden won the nomination: “I think Joe has all the qualities we need in a president today… and I know he will surround himself with good people,” he then declared. Barack Obama in a video message. Four years earlier, during Hillary Clinton’s victory in the primaries, he expressed more enthusiasm: “I don’t think there’s ever been anyone so qualified for this job.”
Joe Biden: “Trump is a loser“
However, once Joe Biden won the primaries, Barack Obama actively supported him. He increased the number of electoral meetings in key states, held fundraising galas and recorded advertising spots in his favor. He took over this role very early last August, fifteen months before the election, a sign of his concern. Between two golf courses, his film and documentary productions with Netflix and his foundation, the retired president participated in a raffle which raised $2.6 million. The winner was entitled to a meeting with the two men. He has also appeared in several videos. This is probably just the beginning. “Obama is held in high esteem by Democrats and can be very useful, particularly in motivating the African-American electorate,” observes Professor Edwards III.
Is it pressure from the former president or the prospect of Donald Trump winning the Republican primaries? In any case, we are seeing an evolution. Mitch Landrieu, a White House advisor, has just been named co-director of the re-election campaign. And Joe Biden went on the attack. In early January, he made a fiery speech accusing Donald Trump of being a “loser” and a threat to democracy. “He’s campaigning for himself, not for America. Not for you. […] He is ready to sacrifice our democracy to rise to power.” Enough to reassure, a little, the democratic camp.
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