Former president Barack Obama has aggressively ramped up campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris because he’s fretting that a Democratic loss in this year’s presidential election will erode his legacy, according to sources who spoke to CNN.
The network reported that Obama wanted to keep his political role to that of emeritus elder statesman, and had in recent years kept his Democratic activities to behind the scenes meetings with elected congresspersons including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Obama, who has enriched himself post-presidency from six figure speeches to Wall Street, a $65 million memoir deal and a recently extended Netflix deal, talked to these congresspeople “about coming off like real people rather than scolding coastal elites,” people who were present told CNN.
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Polls that show former president Donald Trump within striking distance of the Oval Office again this year, however, have turned his plans to lay low on their head. Obama will now be the most active in the final weeks of campaign since his 2012 run for office, sources told CNN.
After his first rally for Harris, held in Pittsburgh on Thursday, he’ll hold more every week until election day and, last week, recorded nearly two dozen videos for the Harris campaign.
Obama does not think he can sway committed Trump voters, CNN reported, but is rather hoping to help motivate voters to counter them where it can make a difference in the electoral outcome.
The sudden urgency from Obama’s camp is apparently derived from a fear that, with a Trump victory, the Republican’s populist and nativist politics will have made Obama’s terms in office seem like an aberration. (While never resorting to Trump’s bigoted rhetoric, Obama was no stranger to deporting millions).
Obama reportedly became quietly more active in the last year, holding meetings and calls with leading Democrats including Harris and President Joe Biden.
In Biden’s case, CNN said, that was particularly notable because the two have had a somewhat fractured relationship since Obama’s former vice president took over the nation’s top job. The network reported Biden had privately complained that Obama wasn’t helping enough when he was still the party’s candidate, while Biden’s aides believed Obama’s team was jealous that they had racked up more legislative accomplishments.
For a period lasting over a year, CNN said, Biden opted to phone up former president Bill Clinton for advice rather than his old White House boss.
