The relationship between the POTUS and the VPOTUS can be a fickle thing. Sometimes things start out well enough but end badly, as they did with former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. Other times, things sputter and struggle to even start out well, as with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. And then there’s whatever is going on between former President Barack Obama and Biden, who served as the former’s VP in both presidential terms.
The two-term Democrat ticket of Obama-Biden has always seemed like an odd fit from the outset — far more a marriage of convenience than anything else.
Biden, very much a swampy, career politician, never quite felt like a natural extension of Obama, very much part of the new breed of far leftism infesting the Democratic Party (think the “squad.”) It doesn’t help dispel the odd couple vibe that Obama, for the many, many, many faults he has, at least has some semblance of a human personality — whereas Biden has all the charisma of a comatose wildebeest.
Obama’s personality largely stems from his speaking ability, and it’s an ability the man clearly puts time and effort into. Whatever you may think of the man, when Obama speaks, it’s very deliberate, crafted and curated. So when Obama mentions — or doesn’t mention — something when speaking publicly, people take notice. In a less-than-glowing Sunday article from The Washington Post, the outlet that threatens democracy with darkness (or something to that effect) chronicled the way in which Democrats are furiously working to overturn the less-than-stellar image of the incumbent president — except for Obama.
Earlier this month, Obama and his team planned a lavish event in Chicago that was both a Democrat rah-rah event and a celebration of the 15-year anniversary of Obama’s 2008 general election victory.
WaPo reported that, speaking to unnamed attendees of the event, there was a “pointed absence of any meaningful cheerleading for Biden.”
Obama allegedly “barely mentioned” Biden in a speech at that event, nor did he offer much praise for the incumbent on a podcast appearance earlier that day.
Now, Obama’s camp appears to be trying to squelch any anti-Biden chatter, as a representative told the Post that the Chicago event was hosted by the Obama Foundation, which is “a nonprofit that cannot legally engage in partisan political activity.”
That explanation seemed to defy the general sentiment of the event that WaPo reported on: “Yet several attendees said the tensions were evident.”
“The takeaway of the weekend was not, ‘Hey team, we’ve got to get the band back together to help Biden out,’” one unnamed attendee told the Post. “If this is a supposedly existential threat and democracy is so challenged, then why aren’t you being more overt about it.”
Well, the reason that Team Obama is not “being more overt” is a rather simple one: The entire Obama brand is about being a frontrunner and Biden’s losing all over the place right now (in polls, in public sentiment, you name it.)
The self-preservation of his own legacy far outweighs any love that Obama may have had for Biden once upon a time, and that’s because, simply put, Biden is toxic.
It’s a genuinely difficult task to name one tangible aspect of American life that has improved under Biden’s watch, particularly when juxtaposed against what his predecessor accomplished. In fact, it’s hard-pressed to name a single thing Biden has even done better than Obama — which is a pretty damning assessment.
And, evidently, Obama wants as little to do with that sort of poor presidency, his own notwithstanding, as possible.
So yes, America has seen presidents and vice presidents bicker and ultimately despise each other (again, look at the sniping that still exists between Trump and Pence)… but this still feels exceptionally cold and like bad news for Biden.
Obama isn’t bashing Biden or anything like that. But he’s also not really acknowledging Biden or his presidency.
That almost feels worse, because if the ostensible patriarch of the modern Democratic Party isn’t even acknowledging you… that’s more worrisome than any poll could possibly be.
