VDH: Blame Barack: Obama’s lost mystique marks the end of a political era.
Failed candidate Harris has been roundly faulted by staffers and donors for blowing through some $2 billion in assorted 2024 campaign money.
She ended up doing worse against Trump than Biden himself had in 2020.
Many Democrats believe that they might have done just as well had Biden stayed on the ticket even in his vastly diminished state.
The Obamas were further blasted for nullifying the wishes of 14 million primary voters by forcing Biden off the ticket — ironically in the same backroom, anti-democratic manner they had cleared the way for him in 2020.
Obama emerged from his comfortable retirement to hit the 2024 campaign trail, schooling the country that President-emeritus Donald Trump was a dictator, a fascist, a tyrant and, of course, a “racist.”
The more Trump polled even with, or ahead of, Kamala Harris, the more an exasperated and ignored Obama talked down to supposedly low-information voters.
But by the time Harris lost the election, voters had tuned out a nagging and patronizing Obama — and his stale, now-dated hope-and-changey boilerplate speeches.
What Obama did not mention, but what the voters knew, was that the border was more secure under Trump than during either the Obama or Biden tenure.
Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded countries during the Obama and Biden administrations but stayed put on Trump’s watch.
Obama’s bizarre vision of a new Middle East had sought to empower Iran as a supposed counterweight against moderate Arab nations and our ally Israel.
Hey, remember back in late October of 2008 on the eve of the election, when Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose pretended they knew nothing about Obama’s worldview, including his foreign policy views? Good times, good times:
As transcribed by the Rush Limbaugh Show back in the day:
ROSE: I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is.
BROKAW: No, I don’t, either.
ROSE: I don’t know how he really sees where China is.
BROKAW: We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
ROSE: I don’t really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?
BROKAW: Yeah, it’s an interesting question.
ROSE: He is principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational (sic) speeches.
BROKAW: Two of them! I don’t know what books he’s read.
ROSE: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
BROKAW: There’s a lot about him we don’t know.
As Rush replied:
Incredible! (laughing) Let’s send the journalist to find out! Why, have you guys ever thought of that, Tom? Have you ever thought about sending a reporter to find out who the guy is? Charlie! You got plenty of reporters there at PBS, at least on the… Have you ever thought about sending anybody out to find out who he is, besides the two books? (laughing) I cannot believe this. We know who his heroes are — and, of course, that’s the point! We know who his heroes are. We know who his alliances are with. We know who his friends are. We know that he chose them all. But to hear… This is last night. This is, what, four days, five days before the election. These are two of Obama’s biggest media supporters! You gotta… I gotta hear this again. This is hilarious if it weren’t so damn maddening, because the answer to this is, ‘Hey, Tom? Talk to the bureau chief in Washington, the new guy who replaced Russert. What you do is, you assign a reporter to go out and find out who Obama is.’
The media would of course repeat the same pattern with Kamala, but were thwarted by her own words during her abortive 2020 campaign in the Democrats’ primaries, leading to their feigning shock when the Trump campaign used video of her promising sex changes to prisoners and illegal immigrants in their ads. (And of her vice presidential nominee’s actions — and inaction — during the infamous 2020 Minnesota riots.) It’s a reminder that it’s nigh-impossible to run a “change” election when your candidate is the sitting vice president and has a long history of making wild promises in an attempt to swing to the fences — and lacks the political chops and rock star charisma of the 2008-era Obama to hide his or her radical chic worldview.