Wednesday March 27, 2024 ((rezonodwes.com))–
When President Joe Biden needs advice, he can turn to two people who know what it’s like to sit in his seat. Sometimes he invites Barack Obama to the White House for a meal, or he makes a phone call to Bill Clinton.
The three men share decades of history at the pinnacle of American and Democratic leadership, making them an unusual trio in presidential history. Although there was sometimes friction as their ambitions and agendas diverged, they spent years working toward a similar vision for the country.
This Thursday, their partnership will be highlighted in what has been described as a first-of-its-kind fundraising extravaganza in New York to help Biden capitalize on his already significant financial advantage in this year’s presidential election. It’s a show of strength intended to rally the Democratic Party faithful to secure a second term for Biden despite his stubbornly low poll numbers and doubts due to his age (81).
“There is everything to be gained for Joe Biden by being alongside Bill Clinton and Barack Obama,” said Leon Panetta, who worked in the administrations of both former presidents. “This image is worth a lot in politics today. »
The show of solidarity contrasts sharply with Donald Trump’s isolation from other Republican leaders.
Although Trump has consolidated his hold on his party en route to the presumptive inauguration, even his former vice president, Mike Pence, is not ready to support Trump’s bid for another term in the White House. The other only living Republican president, George W. Bush, is also not a partisan.
The situation is very different with Biden, Obama and Clinton. When they weren’t campaigning against each other, they were working together.
At one point, the three were on a collision course during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. Biden and Obama were seeking the nomination, as was Clinton’s wife, Hillary. Obama won and chose Biden as vice president and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
As Obama’s two terms drew to a close and the 2016 election approached, he pushed Hillary Clinton into the spotlight as his preferred successor and dissuaded Biden from running after her son’s death from cancer. eldest son. Clinton lost to Trump, who lost to Biden in 2020. Obama secretly helped clear the path for Biden’s Democratic nomination that year.
There have been notable disagreements between the presidents on key issues. Biden failed to persuade Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan in 2009. U.S. forces remained in the country until 2021, when Biden withdrew them during his first year in office.
The three presidents have often focused on the same objectives as in a kind of legislative relay. Clinton failed to significantly expand access to health care during his presidency, which spanned from 1993 to 2001. Obama took over when he took office in 2009 and signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
Biden called the law a “big…deal” — inserting an infamous expletive into the middle of that thought — and strengthened it when he began his own term in 2021. He signed legislation that included financial incentives for States are expanding Medicaid, prompting North Carolina to take the plunge last year, more than a decade after the Affordable Care Act made it possible.
Between Clinton, Obama and Biden, “they saw democratic history unfold together in ways that not everyone saw,” said Gene Sperling, a longtime economic adviser.
Sperling is one of the administration officials who served all three presidents. Another member of these ranks is John Podesta, currently Biden’s global climate envoy who served as Clinton’s chief of staff and Obama’s environmental adviser.
Podesta said the three tried to improve the lives of American workers.
“Every single one of them, when they close the door to the Oval Office, that’s what mattered most to them,” he said.
But their styles are not the same. While Obama was more reserved, Biden and Clinton gain energy from interacting with people on rope lines and building deep personal relationships.
“Their detente is politics,” Podesta said.
Panetta suggested that Biden, widely unpopular in public polls, should try to glean some advice from his Democratic predecessors, both of whom served two terms.
“The fundamental reason they were re-elected is because they were able to connect with the American people,” he said. “Joe Biden clearly needs to do this. »
