Barack Obama’s efforts to shape the 2020 race might be doing more harm than good – and Dana Perino has some career advice for the former president.
Fox’s Dana Perino warned that Obama “has one opportunity to be a kingmaker,” and that’s at the party convention, BizPacReview reported. With primaries still a few months away, Obama is already playing a kingmaker role from behind the scenes – a few months too early, in fact.
“Only one opportunity,” Perino told Tucker Carlson Tuesday. “If he blows it now, it’s a little bit too early.”
Perino: “Kingmaker” Obama risks “blowing it” for 2020 Dems
In the past year, it has become apparent that the Democrats still don’t have a candidate to fill Obama’s shoes. The “yes we can” president is the de facto leader of his party, and anxiety is running high among Democrats that they have not found a candidate with broad enough appeal to take on Donald Trump.
While Obama has avoided publicly endorsing any candidate, privately he has been meeting with candidates to give them “wisdom” – and although he’s said to be “discreet,” his comments have leaked to the media, as a new report from Politico makes clear. According to the report, Obama would intervene to stop Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who he considers too radical, from becoming the nominee – and Obama also doesn’t think that his former veep Joe Biden, who he has not endorsed, has a “bond” with the electorate.
Perino echoed this, saying that Joe Biden “doesn’t have what it takes” in Iowa, where Pete Buttigieg has surged to the top of the polls. More troubling for Democrats is the fact that they can’t find a candidate like Obama to appeal to the party’s different factions – white liberals, academics, blacks, and so on.
In this state of desperation, Democrats are hopeful that Obama can save them, but he “can’t,” Perino said. The former president really has one chance to make his mark, at the convention; he risks “blowing it” by being too cavalier this early in the primary.
“One of the things that former presidents try to do is to stay out of the limelight. But you have to be disciplined if you’re going to do that. You can’t dip your toe in every once in a while and think that you can try to maneuver things from behind the scenes.”
Obama chastens the left, as rift opens
The Democratic party certainly has changed since Obama left office. Obama’s own legacy as president has come under fire in the Democratic debates, particularly his record on deportations.
As the party has lurched far to the left, a clear rift has opened between the former president and the radicals now squabbling for control of his party. In numerous recent comments, Obama has warned Democrats not to push too far left with “woke” ideology.
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke, and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” Obama said at a recent event.
Carlson noted that Obama has spent his three years since leaving the White House schmoozing with hedge fund managers and inking Netflix deals – hardly the work of a bomb-throwing socialist. Perino predicted that Bernie Sanders supporters will resent Obama if and when he snubs their candidate.
Despite the fact that Obama is almost a moderate by today’s standards, his words still carry immense weight for liberals. “The kingmaker” could also be the undoing of his party, it seems.
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