‘The President Was Not Encouraging’: What Obama Really Thought About Biden

By artappraiser on Fri, 08/14/2020 - 9:42am |

this is good and interesting and somewhat exposing of many of the Obama ecosystem blindspots, even in understanding one's own party https://t.co/PcoobwX7c8 via @AlxThomp
— Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) August 14, 2020

URL:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/14/obama-biden-relationship-393570

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This is sort of what I meant when on today’s Weeds I say Harris is a bit of a self-indulgent pick for the Democrats ... someone who primarily extends Biden’s appeal to the kind of Democratic Party staffers who sneer are him here rather than to marginal voters in the electorate. https://t.co/0nXShjsmoz
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 14, 2020

by artappraiser on Fri, 08/14/2020 - 9:43am

Yglesias continued:

There are certainly many (mostly younger) Black voters who are skeptical of Biden and the Democrats writ large and you could try to court them but as @arcwrites writes they don’t like Harris either. https://t.co/CH9bT1fYyR
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 14, 2020

by artappraiser on Fri, 08/14/2020 - 11:43am

1 skeptical point - part of putting Hillary in at State is it's a well-established method of defanging your competitors - while dealing with foreign matters, they can't maintain their domestic alliances and activities, and Hillary wasn't even allowed to pick her own deputy, so not like Obama really trusted her. Perhaps with danger out of the way they developed a better relationship, And maybe it was an area Obama didnt want to mess with anyway.

Obama also famously sent Petraeus off to Afghanistan, effectively derailing any 2012 ambitions (giving classified docs to his mistress was just icing on the cake)

by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/17/2020 - 4:24am

Not that it matters as to being president for me myself and I, but I suspect Obama the type to not really trust without verifying in work relationships. He's the type that only truly lets his guard down with like, his wife, that's it. (Maybe not even his parents.) He's a wonk type, friendLY but not your real friend. So when he calls you a friend, it's not a REAL friend with whom he would his guard down. Hillary is similar but with a female twist.

Joe, as the article notes, is not a wonk! He's the kind of politician trying to make real friends with everyone, trying to empath his way through things.

Brings to mind the special thing I have always noted about Bill Clinton: he did both, very rare I think.

Again, though, as a grownup of a certain age, I don't think this topic matters much for the average citizen's daily life as to what kind of person is president.

It matters with campaigning, though, it's the "would you have a beer with the guy" thing.

by artappraiser on Mon, 08/17/2020 - 10:13am

Hillary was always the letter-and-list-writing gal, remember those birthdays, names, favors... which Is a different kind of networking, (Wellesley prep?) but still effective. When at State they didnt have a Pavilion for some Chinese Expo, she reached in her bag, and poof, some corporate tie ponied up the million or so. That art of knowing who to call - without you being overindebted.

by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/17/2020 - 10:47am

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submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

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