Sometimes he offers candid advice about his visitors strengths and weaknesses. With several lesser-known candidates, according to people who have talked to him or been briefed on his meetings, he was blunt about the challenges of breaking out of a large field. His advice is not always heeded. He told Patrick earlier this year that it was likely too late for him to secure money and talent if he jumped in the race. Occasionally, he can be cutting. With one candidate, he pointed out that during his own 2008 campaign, he had an intimate bond with the electorate, especially in Iowa, that he no longer has. Then he added, And you know who really doesnt have it? Joe Biden.
Publicly, he has been clear that he wont intervene in the primary for or against a candidate, unless he believed there was some egregious attack. I can't even imagine with this field how bad it would have to be for him to say something, said a close adviser. Instead, he sees his role as providing guardrails to keep the process from getting too ugly and to unite the party when the nominee is clear. There is one potential exception: Back when Sanders seemed like more of a threat than he does now, Obama said privately that if Bernie were running away with the nomination, Obama would speak up to stop him. (Asked about that, a spokesperson for Obama pointed out that Obama recently said he would support and campaign for whoever the Democratic nominee is.) ... Throughout 2017 the main struggle of the small staff Obama assembled in the West End was how to deal with what they viewed as a crazy president personally obsessed with Obama. After running against Obamas legacy, and then holding one awkward but collegial meeting in the White HouseHe knows absolutely nothing, Obama privately told a visitor about Trump, immediately after the meetingTrump discarded historical precedent and began attacking Obama personally as he worked to overturn his policies. For the most part, Obama and his staff chose to ignore the personal and weighed in only on big policy questions.
Even after the election, Obama still held out hope that he and Trump could have some kind of normal president/former president relationship, similar to how Obama and George W. Bush operated in 2009. He wanted to be a resource, said Kevin Lewis, Obamas first post-presidential press secretary. What we didnt expect at the level that it was done were the attacks. ... And then Joe Biden announced he would run for president. Presidents have always struggled with how much to support their vice presidents. At one level, a Biden win would be a profound vindication, an almost direct restoration of the Obama administration. But Obama had already passed over Biden for Hillary Clinton in 2016. With Biden out of the race in 2020, the psychodrama of their relationship and the intrigue about Obamas assessment of Biden could have been avoided. Obamas commitment to non-interference would have seemed less fraught.
Biden, Obama told people close to him before Biden even entered the race, would have to earn it. There would be no endorsement. (Biden has said he never asked for one.) Besides, he liked to say, fighting it out in a tough primary is what made Obama a strong candidate for the general election. ... Over the past year, Obama and his closest advisers were clinical in their assessments of the candidates. They discussed doubts about Kamala Harris appeal to African Americans. Obama was deeply skeptical about the prospects of Mayor Pete Buttigieg. During their West End meeting, he was complimentary about Steve Bullocks record as a governor and frank about his challenges: Nobody knows who you are, he told him.
When it comes to Sanders, I asked one close adviser whether Obama would really lay himself on the line to prevent a Sanders nomination. I cant really confirm that, the adviser said. He hasnt said that directly to me. The only reason I'm hesitating at all is because, yeah, if Bernie were running away with it, I think maybe we would all have to say something. But I don't think that's likely. It's not happening. (Another close Obama friend said, Bernie's not a Democrat.)
As for Warren, the candidate who has tried to bridge the worlds of Sanders and Obama, Obamas relationship with Warren is famously complicated. Back in early 2015, when Warren was considering running for president and started to excite progressives, Obama said privately that if Democrats rallied around her as their nominee it would be a repudiation of hima clear sign that his economic decisions after the Great Recession had been seen as inadequate. There are very few former senior Obama officials in Warrens campaign.
The Obama diaspora is most heavily represented in Bidens campaign. While Obama may have been cutting about Bidens feel for the electorate, people close to him suggest that Obama, like many other Democrats who are clear-eyed about Bidens weaknesses, has been surprised by his resilience. ... One person who is very close to both Obama and Biden said the only time the Biden campaign has been disappointed in Obama is over Trumps Ukraine scandal. I don't think anybody in the Biden world challenges Obamas affection for Biden, or challenges his strategy of not weighing in for anybody, this person said. I do think there's frustration when Joe Biden and Hunter Biden get attacked by Republicans on the Ukrainian thing and they say, Obama and his administration looked the other way back when this was happening, and Obama doesn't say anything. The Biden people ask, Why wont Obama say something?
I'm really not liking this post Presidency Obama. If he really sniped Warren or Sanders like that, he'd be greatly increasing the chance of a second term for Trump and would have to know that. So if he did it, it would put all of his moderate policies in a very different light because he'd be considering all of the destruction that would do better than any type of even potentially transformative presidency.
Maybe everyone should have taken him more seriously when he said he would have been considered a moderate Republican in the 80s? ---
I like how he's being frank with everybody that sees him. He won't even give any sort of endorsement to his two-term vice president in an effort to keep things fair. ---
When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps. - Confucius
