Will Obama discuss politics during his visit?
Historians, experts say it’s unlikely he’ll talk public affairs
He hasn’t voiced support for any of the Democratic presidential candidates, hasn’t publicly piped up to clarify his relationship with his once Vice President Joe Biden, or uttered a word about the ongoing impeachment hearings against his successor, President Donald Trump.
Yet when former President Barack Obama appears in Chicago on Tuesday at his foundation’s annual summit, eyes and ears from across the nation will turn toward the South Side to hear what he has to say. His appearance comes the day after Trump is making his first visit to Chicago since being elected president to hold a fundraiser and deliver remarks to an international police chiefs association conference.
Obama’s also speaking three months before the Iowa caucus and just days after U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts stopped here to shake the hands of striking Chicago public school teachers and stand with them on the picket line while drumming up support.
Barring a recent tweet in support of embattled Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Obama has remained quiet recently. Nevertheless, in many ways, Obama’s record and reputation have been a part of every Democratic debate as the candidates have weighed in on the Affordable Care Act, his deportation record and fiercely argued over his approach to tackling racism and poverty.
Still, it’s unlikely that he will talk public affairs or even mention the current political climate, strategists and historians say. Since he left office in 2017, Obama has been selective about when he weighs in. That’s likely to continue, experts say.
“Typically, once a president leaves the stage, they are concerned about their legacy. They want to seem to put partisan politics behind them, and they want to be seen as above that, as a statesman,” said Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “We don’t know what he will say. If he is to talk, it will be very cautiously.”
On Friday, as he spoke at the funeral of Rep. Elijah Cummings, Obama didn’t name Trump but seemed to make reference to him when he spoke of the congressman having been “honorable.”
“I was just noticing ‘The honorable Elijah E. Cummings,’ ” Obama said, pointing behind him to what appeared to be an image with the congressman’s name and title. “This is a title that we confer on all types of people that get elected to public office,” he said and paused.
“We’re supposed to introduce them as honorable. But Elijah Cummings was honorable before he was elected to office.”
The Obama Summit is in its third year and is basically a way for the Obama Foundation to showcase what it wants to do here once the Obama Presidential Center is built: bring leaders from across the world to share ideas and learn from each other.
The Obama Foundation is tasked with overseeing the development of the Obama Presidential Center, a sprawling campus that will feature meeting spaces, a gym, a public library branch and a museum that will honor the country’s first African American president and first lady. The center is expected to cost $500 million to build and was supposed to break ground this year and open in 2021. But recently development has stalled as the plans are reviewed by federal officials.
However, the summit allows the foundation to strut its many programs — the Obama Foundation Scholars, Obama Fellows, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, the Community Leadership Corps, Africa Leaders and the Obama Opportunity Alliance.
The first year of the event was star-studded, with dozens of bold-face organizers, elected officials, and leaders who served in the White House during the Obama years. More recently, the event has been more subdued with less of an emphasis on celebrities and more showcasing the change agents and thought leaders that the foundation is training.
Each year Obama, and his wife, Michelle Obama, have spoken. They’ve talked about fighting back impostor syndrome, creating a tribe of supportive friends, the importance of public art particularly in struggling communities and having patience as organizers work to create change. They have veered away from criticizing the current president, dissecting his policies or even broaching city politics.
Last year, Obama told the gathering that he was laboring away on his book, but struggling with the writing. But mostly, he urged the room of 650 handpicked guests to remember that equality and justice takes generations of fighting.
“You should be extraordinarily impatient about the injustices and nonsense and foolishness you see around you and you should be finding opportunities at every juncture to challenge those things,” he said. “At the same time, you have to keep in your mind: Societies are these complex, organic things that you don’t turn (like) switches. They evolve. They shift. They change.”
In 2017, he simply told the gathering that he wanted his foundation to organize the event so that he could bring others like him to the community where he first got his start. He wanted them to see the place where he built a family and found a collective of close friends.
“What an amazing gift, an extraordinary privilege to be able to make the world better,” he told the group of about 500 leaders then. “To work with others and be able to look back … and say that a child has an education because of the work I did, that person has health care, because of the steps I took, that group of people that didn’t have a voice now has a voice.”
On Tuesday, Obama will sit in conversation with actress Yara Shahidi and they will focus on how people around the world can bring change in their communities. Because it’s a conversation, Obama doesn’t have scripted or prepared remarks, officials said.
Obama also isn’t likely to discuss politics because his foundation is nonpartisan. In addition, because it is seeking to build its headquarters on public property, officials don’t want to veer into any topics that could inflame detractors, said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“Usually these events have been low-key,” he said. “Obama is still very much liked, despite the controversy around the presidential center. Obama is very popular, as is Michelle. The kind of things he will talk about will not be controversial. He probably won’t weigh in on Trump.
“The things he could say to make news, he probably won’t.”
Plus, it’s too early in the presidential race for Obama to place a hand in the election, said John Miles Coleman, editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political analysis newsletter run by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
“On one level, he’s been working with candidates, but he hasn’t been public about it,” Coleman said.
“He’s always been known to be a cautious guy — ‘no drama Obama’,” Coleman said. “If he got involved too early, we would hear even more from Trump about it. A lot of politics is perception and I don’t think he wants to give the perception that he’s putting his thumb on the scale for someone too early.”
Some political leaders have started to make public their selected candidates in the crowded Democratic field of presidential hopefuls. Last week, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York announced she’s endorsing U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. But that endorsement doesn’t carry the same weight, Coleman said.
“Really, the most coveted endorsement is Obama’s,” Coleman said. “It’s quite some power he has.”
The Obama Summit is closed to the public but the main stage events will be available via livestream at Obama.org