LF: Barack Obama Is Quietly Getting into the 2020 Race

Days after the 2016 election, Barack Obama was racked by self-doubt. “What if we were wrong?” he asked his aides, his longtime senior adviser Ben Rhodes recalls in his new memoir of the Obama presidency. Had the administration “pushed too far” in its promotion of cosmopolitan values, neglecting and underestimating the simmering anger of Rust Belt workers, white identitarians, and other culture warriors who worried their country was changing too much, too fast? “Maybe,” Obama said, “people just want to fall back into their tribe.” It’s been a mark of humility, perhaps, that Obama has remained mostly silent since then, issuing only occasional statements criticizing his successor. It may also reflect a degree of political cunning: with Democrats in disarray for much of Donald Trump’s first year in office, the party has needed time to right itself, to find a new message and new leaders.

Behind the scenes, however, Obama has been quietly re-entering Democratic politics, asserting his role as presidential kingmaker ahead of the 2020 election. While Obama has steered clear of the upcoming midterms, Politico reports that he has met with at least nine possible Democratic presidential candidates in recent months, including the nominal democratic-socialist Bernie Sanders, former Massachusetts governor and close friend Deval Patrick, and financial-reform crusader Elizabeth Warren, among others. The secret appointments, which Politico confirmed with multiple sources, represent a diverse prospective field: there is also former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, Los Angeles and South Bend Mayors Eric Garcetti and Pete Buttigeig, and, in a more long-shot bet, former Army National Guard captain Jason Kander, who was widely considered potential presidential material before losing a Missouri senatorial bid in 2016.

According to multiple people familiar with them, the meetings run long, often over an hour. Obama tends to give advice, guidance, talk about the future of the party, and everyone’s places in it. The conversations can be searching, get philosophical, then quickly veer back to brass tacks. He’ll give his thoughts on campaigns. He’ll offer to help make sure donors and party bigwigs are returning calls.

The former president’s advice, per people briefed on the meetings, is classic No-Drama Obama: stick to the issues that matter to people, don’t get distracted, and don’t define yourself in the negative.

Many of the conversations have circled around Obama holding forth about how much Democrats should be heading into the midterms talking about the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election versus focusing on kitchen-table issues. Don’t chase the shiny objects, he tells them. Don’t hyperventilate over the flash of any tweet. Think about what’s going to stick in the long term.

That roughly tracks with the conventional wisdom in Democratic circles as they campaign in 2018: allow Democrats to run local races without national interference, don’t rock the boat with too much progressivism, and don’t make it too much about that guy in the White House. Of course, what works in the midterms won’t necessarily work in 2020, when the stakes will be national and Trump will be unavoidable. “The way to disempower Trump is to ignore him, but it’s too hard even for his opponents to do it,” Columbia Law professor Tim Wu told my colleague Peter Hamby. “It has to be a pure attention battle.” That means Democrats ultimately have to create their own programming, characters, celebrities, and story lines that are just as captivating as Trump. It will require something more than the “‘I Hate Trump’ show,” as Wu called it—but it can’t entirely ignore Trump, either.

Beating Trump at the attention battle will be a tall order for Democrats—especially given how Trump has weaponized liberal discontent to solidify his support. (One recent poll found that after his handling of the economy and his general policies, nearly 8 out of 10 G.O.P. voters in battleground House races said the thing they liked most about Trump was his commitment to “upsetting the ‘elites’ and the establishment.”) While Trump remains historically unpopular overall, he has an incredibly high approval rating within his own party, with 87 percent of Republican voters saying they approve of his performance thus far. If the economy doesn’t weaken, the wind will be at Trump’s back in 2020, despite historic Democratic activism and engagement. Democrats may need Obama-level turnout to beat back Trump’s small but intensely committed voter base.

So far, polling suggests that a generic Democrat would beat Trump, with the latest putting their chances at 44 to 36 percent. But once real Democrats get into the 2020 race, the calculus changes. Trump and his Republican allies have already painted Sanders as a radical and Warren as an opportunist. Landrieu has been criticized as a self-promoter, Patrick’s name would become synonymous with Bain Capital, and Kander could be dismissed as untested. The key for each will be to define themselves, and their narrative, before Trump can brand them himself.

Obama, who always maintained close control of his image and personal story, may be indispensable in that regard, especially at this early stage of the 2020 race. He will almost certainly emerge as a party kingmaker, whether he covets the role or not. According to Politico, Obama won’t get involved in midterm endorsements until this fall, and is not expected to endorse anyone for president until after the party coalesces around a nominee. Still, it’s possible Obama has his favorites. He remains close with former vice president Joe Biden, who is reportedly leaning toward running, and the two talk on the phone frequently. “The 2020 race and what Biden’s going to do haven’t come up in those discussions,” people briefed on those conversations said, with Obama “waiting on his friend to make a decision.”

New Zealand I think. It's a voodoo campaign, it's what Obongo knows best. I just hacked the excess code out quick without looking too closely.

It seemed like the Obama campaign never stopped. The 2012 campaign started as soon as he whupped your boy Juan McStain.

The D&R party is constantly maneuvering to get a worse candidate elected. It's their secret of success. "Never give a sucker an even break". ~PT Barnum

I never voted for the Stain. If given the chance, I would vote for him to DIE ALREADY AND SHUT UP! That's the only vote he could get from me.

That's only because oppo research has been restricted by Sessions, the Feebs, and 0bama-holdovers while evidence that exposes this traitor and saboteur for what he is has been insulated and hidden by the same 0bama-holdover and RINO firewalls.

The whole fake "RUSSIA!!" charade has been nothing but a stalling/misdirection tactic by the MSM-Dem-RINO Machine to keep Trump on the defensive so he *can't* muster investigations on the 0bama-Hitlery treachery. The Dems/Media/Ryan-wing of the GOP are trying to run out the clock till 2020.

Hondo, you seem unable to comprehend exactly how the 2008 campaign *actually* went down. IF anything, Republicans, consevatives and independents were voting AGAINST 0bama and not FOR McStain. Let me refresh your memory in brief:

The GOPe fixed the primaries to set up McStain for an easy lay-up and nomination. Stain's *Democrat* handlers/"strategists" like Schmit and Wallace chose Palin as VP because they thought she would be a perfect scapegoat for Stain's pre-emptively planned losing campaign. Instead she almost drove him to the Finish Line. UNTIL Stain sandbagged sabotaged his own campaign (sorta like Poppy Bush against Clinton in '92).

0bama did not so much "win" as McStain purposely lost in what was an orchestrated Fix.

EXCEPT that while 0bama was campaigning, he was DESTROYING America at every turn.

Though Trump may remain in a re-election mode (which helps the mid-terms), HIS agenda *during* his Presidency has clearly been MAGA; *His* election for 2020 would EXTEND MAGA. You got a problem with that?

The D&R party is constantly maneuvering to get a worse candidate elected. It's their secret of success.

I actually agree with your statement in the case of the Establishment GOP snakes.

What you still can't seem to grasp or admit is...Donald Trump is NOT nor has EVER been part of the past "D&R" Uni-Party Statist-Globalist machine and rubber-stamp agenda. Which is exactly why the Ryan-McStain GOPe-wing keep on attempting to sabotage Donald Trump's MAGA agenda.

The former president plots his return—as Democratic kingmaker.