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bigtree

(85,977 posts)
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 12:42 PM Mar 2016

Get ready for an unusual sight: a two-term president on the trail

bwdone2017 ?@theonlyadult 15h15 hours ago
Get ready for an unusual sight: a two-term president on the trail http://on.msnbc.com/1Z9uoW6 via @msnbc

The New York Times published a piece yesterday that raised quite a few eyebrows, claiming that President Obama, using “unusually candid remarks,” told a group of Democratic donors late last week that the party’s nominating contest is nearly over – and Democrats should start coming together to support Hillary Clinton.

Bernie Sanders noted on the show last night that the White House has already pushed back against the report, which is true. Press Secretary Josh Earnest disputed the article and said the president’s private remarks were about Democratic cohesion in general, not about one candidate over the other.

But the chatter served as a reminder about an overlooked detail: Obama will not be a passive observer during the 2016 election cycle. On the contrary, the Washington Post reported yesterday that the president is “plunging into the campaign fray.”

“The president has been clear that as we get closer to the general election, it will become even more important that the American people understand what is at stake,” White House deputy press secretary Jennifer Friedman said in an email.

Obama and his top aides have been strategizing for weeks about how they can reprise his successful 2008 and 2012 approaches to help elect a Democrat to replace him. And out of concern that a Republican president in 2017 – either Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) – would weaken or reverse some of his landmark policies, Obama and his surrogates have started making the case that it is essential for the GOP to be defeated in November.


The article added that Obama “is poised to be the most active sitting president on the campaign trail in decades,” which is both true and interesting in ways the political world hasn’t really considered in earnest yet.

Obama obviously isn’t the only modern two-term president, but he’s likely to be the only one who’s played a high-profile electoral role during his eighth year.


read: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/get-ready-unusual-sight-two-term-president-the-trail

19 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Ferd Berfel

(3,687 posts)
3. IS'nt he signaling that he won't wait
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 12:58 PM
Mar 2016

for the primaries to be over?

Bernie's best states are coming up now. IF BO is going to save the corporate elite and his precious sell out of America (TPP) dosen't he have to act soon?


Zynx

(21,328 posts)
16. Wow, a lot of what you put under Obama just flatly isn't true.
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:51 PM
Mar 2016

Escalating the Iraq War? That's just a dead flat lie. No change to bank regulation? Also not true. The "sets up for the next crash" thing is something that some people are just assuming, but there is no evidence of.

Furthermore, the banks as institutions have had to pay massive amounts of money to the federal government via settlements and to me that's worth far more than a criminal prosecution, which would probably not work anyway and frankly accomplish very little.

Ferd Berfel

(3,687 posts)
19. Really?
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 06:45 PM
Mar 2016

THe Surge
We have the same banking problems we had in 2007, and we are about to crash again for the same reasons

Paying fines is a BS cover. They have been a small percentage of the take. THEY STILL MADE MONEY on it. It's the cost of doing business. It makes the government partners in the scam. Until the perp-a-traitors land in jail for very long sentences (as they did in Iceland) nothing changes. They are already doing it again. If fact the traitorous banks that crashed last time are even bigger now. Someone told me "that's insane"

wake up

And interesting that you don't even try to defend the lists for Hillary or Wild Bill.

tularetom

(23,664 posts)
5. Yeah, he's gotta save the ol' TPP
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:13 PM
Mar 2016

Sanders has come out strongly against the TPP and Hillary Clinton is pretending to oppose it as well. Obama believes he can keep Clinton from moving to the right after she gets the nomination, but what he really wants is to get her to endorse the TPP.

I think he may be wrong but he's a very persuasive guy. Actually I hope he's wrong because I think that treaty would be a disaster for the American economy.

bigtree

(85,977 posts)
8. yeah, because otherwise the president would automatically be inclined to support Bernie
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:21 PM
Mar 2016

...especially with all of the Sanders camp's attacks on the administration.

Hillary has come out against the TPP.

tularetom

(23,664 posts)
12. You know better than that
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:43 PM
Mar 2016

I doubt that the president would support Bernie, although he would probably reluctantly endorse him if he were to become the nominee.

And Hillary's oppostion to the TPP was the most nuanced, weasel worded statement that any politician, even a Clinton, could make. Once she has the nomination in her hot little hand, all her doubts about that POS deal will magically disappear.

Obama is concerned about his "legacy" and Clinton is the only candidate of either party who even gives lip service to it. I'm pretty sure he doesn't trust her any further than he could throw her but what choice does he have? If he talks her up a bit he can possibly keep her from making a hard right turn in a misguided effort to lure white moderate and independent voters in the general election.

oasis

(49,330 posts)
9. Hillary won't switch to support the TPP. It would be a "read my lips"
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:22 PM
Mar 2016

political blunder. Her chances for a second term would go down in flames.

tritsofme

(17,371 posts)
10. Good for him, but it is a pretty small sample size. Bush was a toxic failure, Gore inexplicably
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:24 PM
Mar 2016

(and very stupidly) shunned Bill Clinton entirely to his own detriment.

Reagan is probably the closest modern example, both men are heading into election season with broadly similar approval ratings.

There were no full two term presidents between him and Eisenhower, and he wasn't exactly giddy to get Dick Nixon in the Oval Office. FDR was his own advocate for a third term, so I think we've covered modern presidents.

Interesting history, I think Obama can play an immensely positive role on the campaign trail.

 

workinclasszero

(28,270 posts)
17. Awesome!
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:54 PM
Mar 2016

BHO will that asshole Trump for all the birther shit he has spewed out of his filthy republican piehole for years!

Paybacks a bitch Herr Trump!!!

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