Houseguests and fish begin to smell after three days, as the saying goes. But ex-presidents who stay in Washington, D.C., reek almost immediately.
In the history of the republic, former presidents have had the decency to get out of town rather than loom over their successor. The two exceptions appear to be Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama. Wilson, however, has the excuse that he was practically bedridden and expired within three years. Obama has no excuse at all.
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The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the Opinion newsletter SubscribeObama cannot stand being out of the spotlight. During his second term, instead of focusing on building the Democratic Party, he created his own political organization. Before it flopped, he raised millions, diverting resources and organizing away from his party. This is a supposed political genius, yet his decisions opened a path to victory for Trump.
Obama will not and cannot come to grips with this fact, even to this day.
Trump was elected by disaffected Obama voters. When you compare the 2012 and 2016 exit polls and county-by-county results, what stands out are defection and disaffection — defection of Obama voters to Trump and disaffection toward Obama’s chosen successor, Hillary Clinton.
Between the 2012 and 2016 elections, Clinton dropped by nearly 3 points in the popular vote from Obama. Trump fell by just 1 point from Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Among voters with a household income under $100,000, Trump improved by 1 point over Romney, whereas Clinton fell by 5 points. With union voters, Trump improved by 2 points and Clinton fell by 7 points.
More importantly, Trump jumped by 5 points with voters who had a high school education or less, whereas Clinton dropped by 7 points.
Even young voters walked away from the Democratic ticket. Trump did not improve on Romney with the youngest demographic, but Clinton fell by 5 points from Obama's 2012 performance.
If Clinton, who received Obama’s early endorsement and ran supporting his policies, had held on to just half of those defectors, she would have won.
After four years of Trump and four years of Obama’s former vice president (and an administration stuffed with Obama alums and acolytes), the electorate looks even worse. Many, many Obama voters abandoned Democrats. The 2024 exit polls showed Trump rising to 45 percent with union households, 5 points over Romney. Trump won 51 percent with households earning less than $100,000 (up 8 points); and 62 percent with those earning a high school education or less (up 16 points).
And what about the “youth vote,” with whom Obama thought he has a special connection? Well, those 18-29s in 2012 are now 30-44. That age cohort went from Obama at plus-13 points in 2012 to Kamala Harris at a mere plus-4 points. In other words, Trump jumped by 9 to 10 points with Obama’s “special friends.”
It is hard to figure out what Obama is really thinking; tightly controlled as ever, and only sitting for sycophantic interviews, he seldom reveals anything of real interest. But his actions point to a man out of touch and befogged by his own delusions of genius.
How Obama handled the implosion of Joe Biden is a study in political malpractice. In interviews over their new book, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” authors Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen paint a poor picture of the former president.
According to Parnes and Allen, Obama mounted a campaign to shunt Kamala Harris aside in some ersatz quickie primary, which he probably thought he could control. But there’s opinion and there’s political reality. The reality is and was (recognized far in advance) that pushing Harris aside was always a fool’s errand.
From the day she became vice president, Harris was the prohibitive favorite to be the next nominee. The idea that any VP could be passed over — much less the first black woman to serve as VP — was crazy. Only if Harris was going to meekly accept the lofty judgement of Obama would that work, and why would she do that?
Yes, she’s not that great a politician. But there are not exactly a ton of all-stars in the Democratic Party. According to Parnes and Allen, Obama was thinking that the next ticket should be Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He seemed to think that these little-experienced, unfamiliar pols were going to blitz Harris and grab the nomination.
The fact that the mediocre Harris easily sunk this buffoonish plan shows how truly weak it was.
The effort to supplant Harris may well signal the last hurrah for Obama having real power in the Democratic Party. Despite all the disrespect from the national media and the political establishment, Kamala Harris is the real leader of the Democrats today — at least, she is the absolute favorite to be the 2028 nominee, if she wants it.
Harris still polls very strong, with essentially 100 percent name recognition among Democrats and 82 percent approval with liberal voters (80 percent with Democrats), easily ahead of any of her putative rivals. And Harris has a ready-made excuse for losing in 2024: she was stuck with Biden hanging around and his awful campaign apparatus.
Harris will lead in the Democratic polls at least through the first Democratic primary in 2028. If she holds on and gets the nomination, she might play nice with Obama in order to win, but you can bet her team will put him in the freezer if she wins.
It is true Obama enjoys high ratings in comparison to past presidents. But that popularity is little more than nostalgia. Obama has clearly lost his political touch. The nation's politics has moved on. It is past time for Obama to pack his bags and leave town.
Keith Naughton is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.
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