Obama is ready to step up to plate
Popular former president will rally support for Democrats in midterms
WASHINGTON— Former president Barack Obama, who has kept a low public profile since leaving the White House a year and half ago, is wading back into politics ahead of the November elections.
Obama will actively help Democrats in competitive races, aides close to him say, and he is stepping up fundraising efforts for the party.
“The simple message right now is that if people participate and they vote, that this democracy works,” Obama said Thursday night at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Beverly Hills, California. “The majority of the country doesn’t want to see a dog-eat-dog world where everybody is angry all the time.”
Without directly mentioning U.S. President Donald Trump, Obama drew the contrast, saying: “To a large degree, we are seeing a competition between two stories ... There’s the story that is based largely on fear, and there is a story based largely in hope. There’s the story that says we’re in it together, and there’s the story that says there’s an us and a them.”
Obama added that “fear is powerful” and that Democrats have a lot of ground work to do to win in November. “I would caution us from extrapolating too much from a bunch of special elections and starting to think that, ‘OK, this will take care of itself.’ Because it won’t.”
Obama’s re-emergence comes at a time of rampant anger among voters in both major political parties.
While Democrats are counting on the former president to boost turnout in midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress, it remains unclear how effective Obama will be — or whether he provokes Republicans to cast ballots against his party.
During his presidency, Obama was largely unsuccessful in transferring his popularity to fellow Democrats in the midterms.
Yet in 2017, he publicly backed three Democrats who successfully won office in Virginia, Alabama and New Jersey, helping them by spurring turnout by African Americans and other voters.
Many Democrats have called for Obama to speak up more at a time when many believe the country’s democratic institutions and values are under attack and its relationships with traditional allies are strained.
“I’m giving you the executive summary: Vote. Participate. Get involved,” Obama said at the Beverly Hills fundraiser, which reporters attended.
“And do not wait for the perfect message, and don’t wait to feel a tingle in your spine because you’re expecting politicians to be so inspiring and poetic and moving. Politics, like life, is imperfect. But there is better, and there is worse.”
Since Trump took office, he has systematically dismantled or gutted Obama’s key initiatives, including environmental and banking regulations and key elements of the Affordable Care Act. After leaving the White House, Obama has occasionally given speeches. But he has largely stayed above the political fray and spent considerable time meeting with world lead- ers abroad, writing his memoir and building up his foundation.
Obama aides said the former president’s intent is to help cultivate new leaders in the party, which is still reeling from its loss in the 2016 presidential race.
“In order for the Democratic Party to rebuild, the next generation of leaders is going to have to lead. The president is acutely aware that when he is the limelight, that sucks away oxygen from others,” said Eric Schultz, senior adviser to Obama.
“He wants to lift up and support the next generation of leaders.”
A Gallup poll in February found that 63 per cent of people approved of the way Obama handled his job as president, while only 36 per cent disapproved.
In a poll last month by CNN, 56 per cent of Americans said Obama was a better president than Trump has been, while 37 per cent preferred Trump over Obama.
“He is the most popular Democrat by far, and probably of all national leaders in America — Republican or Democrat,” said Matthew Dowd, who was chief strategist for president George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign and is an ABC news political analyst.
“To me, if he plays in the election, he is a major asset to Democrats.”