I know it’s difficult for an ex-president to campaign for his successor to be deposed.
But these are not ordinary times.
Let’s see:
Who? Check.
What? Check.
When? Check.
Where?
“Keep believing. Keep marching. Keep building. Keep raising your voice. Every generation has opportunity to remake the world…Now’s a good time to be fired up!”
More of this, please sir. We need you.
“It’s tempting right now, to give in to cynicism. To believe that recent shifts in global politics are too powerful to push back against. We have to resist that cynicism because we’ve been through darker times. We’ve been in lower valleys."
Dear G-d, what we had – and what we lost…
Sometimes I can’t fathom that the same country elected this man and the Cantaloupe. But then I remember the Russkies helped. So maybe the number of bellicose ignorance junkies is not really 60 million.
Remember when we had a President who could both communicate ideas and inspire? Who could compose and speak full sentences with a vocabulary missing “special”, “very, very” or “incredible” or “fake news”? Makes me homesick.
It was in Johannesburg, but you’re right.
I know. Just the sound of his voice hits me in the gut. Makes donnie-world all the more surreal. But I really do think the time is right for Obama to make his voice heard. He can rally spirits while reminding us what we need and deserve in a leader.
I completely agree, yet I keep asking myself how. Because if he went full-on public anti-Orange, as we really need, it would fire up the deplorables to a fever pitch and provide a chance for them to turn the spotlight away from their horror show. It would probably make things worse, at least initially.
Maybe this kind of oblique talk is his only reasonable course? Is there another way? I mean, I sure hope there’s another way.
Oh my…what a tonic to listen to Obama today…of all days.
Exactly my thought. At least he can edge onto the scene in this way. And once things get closer, he can release more of the Obama magic.
Oh man….I do look forward to the day when he can let it all out. Probably won’t be for quite a while.
We need to clone him for 2020.
I agree with you and with @seamus42.
He is going to campaign down the ticket this fall. We will hear from him then.
Patrick Duval?
Yeah….I know he and Holder have a plan, thank God. I imagine his Mandela speech is a warm-up of sorts. Not that he needs practice, but just getting the sound of his voice out there for the rest of us.
I am sure this goes against every fiber of Obama’s being. I am certain he was grateful to Dubya for the courtesy of staying in the background and I am certain he had planned to offer the same courtesy to his successor. Sadly, his successor is not worthy of this and Obama must do his best as a (very public) private citizen to help protect the country from treachery.
@mymy Maybe. I like Duval a lot and always have. But I more think that it should be someone who comes out of left field the way Obama did in 2004. Someone who emerges unexpectedly and makes everyone turn their heads and listen in amazement. We need someone to make Americans amazed again, because they didn’t think anyone that fine existed anymore, in this political landscape.
I’m speaking ideally of course. But I think anybody who comes out of creaky machinery, even it’s the leftovers of Obama’s machinery, isn’t ideal.
@clare I imagine his Mandela speech is a warm-up of sorts. Just so. I think you’re on the money.
I think Duval Patrick fits that bill. Very few people who aren’t from Maryland or are heavily dialed into politics even know who he is. Obama had a much bigger presence on the national stage than Patrick has had. In many ways, if he were to rise between now and 2020, he’d be even more of an outsider, a guy coming from out of nowhere, than Obama was.