Obama, the Democrats’ ‘cleanup hitter’
Hillary Clinton’s name is on the ballot, but the 2016 race so far has been just as much a contest between Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Never in modern times has a retiring incumbent been so central to a presidential campaign, a phenomenon embraced by a nominee who initially kept her distance. Crowds sometimes cheer “four more years” when Obama or his wife, Michelle, headline rallies for Clinton.
The outsize role Obama is playing reflects a strategic choice by Clinton to tap an election-year surge in his popularity; the president enjoys 53per-cent job approval in the latest Gallup poll. The Clinton campaign knows that she simply can’t get to the White House unless she can appeal to a coalition she has struggled to excite — the African-American, Hispanic and younger voters, said a Democrat close to the campaign and to the Obama administration.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest declared Obama the “cleanup hitter” for Clinton at a recent news briefing. In that role, Obama plans to devote one to two days each week to campaign for her through the election. He travelled to North Carolina on Tuesday looking to run up the score on Trump, whose campaign is reeling after last week’s release of a 2005 video tape in which he made vulgar comments about women — a development that led many GOP allies to desert him.
Obama appeared to relish the opportunity to attack Trump for the tape on Tuesday, going off-script and speaking 20 minutes longer than expected at a rally in Greensboro, N.C. He questioned how Republicans could criticize Trump’s remarks but maintain their support for him.
“I too believe in forgiveness and redemption, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to elect the person president,” Obama said. “We saw this coming. He’s been saying bad stuff for a while now. I mean what’d you think, he was just going to transform himself?”
Obama has an antipathy toward Trump that runs deeper than politics, the Democrat said. The president and his advisers consider Trump antithetical to core Obama values such as a commitment to racial and cultural diversity, a reliance on reasoned decision-making and a willingness to work within global norms.
During the most recent debate, Trump railed against Obama’s foreign policy, health-care program, and handling of racial unrest, repeatedly linking Clinton to the president.
“This country cannot take another four years of Barack Obama, and that’s what you’re getting with her,” Trump said.