Posted on 01/14/2019 10:02:23 AM PST by billorites
Former President Obama's talk about how politics need “new blood” is being seen as a blow to Joe Biden, the former vice president that Obama did not back to succeed him in 2016.
Sources close to both men describe Obama and Biden as friends who share an admiration and respect for one another.
But they also acknowledge recent remarks like the one Obama made this week in Hawaii represent a sort of threat to Biden, who has told allies in recent days that he’s likely to enter the 2020 presidential race.
Obama was speaking broadly about the need for new blood in politics, not specifically the need for new blood in the Democratic Party.
But coming on the heels of Obama’s meeting with former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Texas), a rising Democratic star who most political observers see as competing with Biden for a slice of the primary electorate, it also sent a signal to the wider political world.
The remark and the burgeoning flirtation between Obama’s political network and O’Rourke also stings Biden given the 2016 campaign, when Obama backed Hillary Clinton and nudged the vice president away from the race, insiders say.
“The president loves this guy, loves Joe, thinks the world of him. He would go in a battle ditch with Joe but that's different than giving his brand to him,” one ally of Obama’s said in describing the political dynamic and the former president's actions.
“He has an incredible soft spot for him. And I'm sure he'll do everything he can to make Joe feel good, but he won't come out and make Joe his candidate,” the ally said. “And I think that hurts Joe.”
“There's always been a fragility to their relationship,” one former administration aide added, acknowledging some rocky moments.
Eric Schultz, the longtime White House aide who serves as a senior adviser to Obama, said the former president "thinks the world" of Biden and "they remain genuinely good friends today."
"He has said many times over that the best decision he made in his career was to select Vice President Biden as his running mate," Schultz said.
A source close to Obama also added that the two men speak "fairly regularly — a lot more than any potential 2020 candidate" and that the two catch up in person from time to time. To that point, Biden came to Obama's office holiday party in Washington last month, the source said.
At the same time, there have been some sensitivities along the way. Biden, for example, saw Obama’s decision to name Clinton as his secretary of State — after a brutal 2008 primary when Obama upset Clinton to win the nomination — as intentional, the aide said.
“He always felt like it was a decision that set her up to be the nominee and I know it stung afterward,” the administration aide said.
In Biden’s book, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose,” which came out last year, Biden wrote that Obama and his team told him he couldn’t beat Clinton.
Biden writes about having lunch with Obama at the White House in August of 2015, when the then-president asked if he was planning a campaign.
“Mr. President, I’m not ready to make up my mind,” Biden recalls telling Obama. “I’m taking it one day at a time. If we do decide to go, we’ll decide in time to be viable.”
But Biden added, “The president was not encouraging.”
Days later, Biden writes, “a couple of people on President Obama’s political team were telling us this race just wasn’t winnable for me."
“There was usually a preamble: We’re very protective of the vice president. We don’t want to see Joe get hurt. We can only imagine what he’s going through right now," Biden said in the book. "But they were not subtle. They asked [senior Biden advisers] Steve [Ricchetti] and Mike [Donilon] to consider the incredible historical forces around Barack Obama in 2008, when he ran against the Clinton machine and still just barely won. And if she almost beat us, they implied, she will definitely beat you.”
In the last two years, sources say Biden has told anyone who would listen that he would have beaten Trump, and that he hopes Obama now realizes that.
And while he understands that Obama won’t come out and endorse him in the primary if he decides to run — the former president has said publicly that he plans to stay neutral — there is still a feeling of “annoyance,” particularly because Biden has been so loyal to the former president, according to one source.
It's not as if Obama has been stiff-arming Biden for the last two years.
They had a very public outing last summer when the two men had a reunion of sorts at a Georgetown bakery.
But sources familiar with the dynamic between the two men said their public lunch — which was plastered all over social media and news sites — didn’t come about out of the blue.
The lunch came on the heels of news reports that Obama had met with potential 2020 candidates including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to offer up advice.
Last month, after it was reported that Obama also met with O’Rourke, Vanity Fair reported that Biden was “said to be less than thrilled.”
The story said it wasn’t so much that Obama took a meeting with O’Rourke, who some have called the next Obama. It was more about the fact that Obama was meeting with potential 2020 contenders while Biden was still weighing whether or not to enter the race.
Bill Russo, Biden’s spokesman, said the storyline was “unequivocally false. Period.”
But the Obama ally said it would make sense if Biden was at least a little irked.
“Beto takes away from Biden and I think a lot of people in Biden World know that,” the ally said. “Beto is without a doubt in the top 5 [potential Democratic contenders] and Obama helped get him there.”
One Biden ally who hopes to work on a future campaign by the former vice president said any annoyance is overblown.
“As a unit, we understand Barack Obama has a job to do,” the Biden ally said. “He has always talked about new people entering the political process. That’s how he got in. … Just because he's willing to listen to other people doesn't mean he's endorsing any of them. ”
The Obama ally agreed, saying the former president has been “incredibly public about his support for Joe.”
“He’ll do just about anything for him,” the ally said. “But he backs the party, not the person. He has an easy out.”
Disarray.
Gropin’ Joe.
Biden knows that “New blood” means transfusions from children into globalist octogenarians.
That image is funny on many levels.
Joe is too old, too white, too traditionally American.
Obama wants another ineligible like Kamala Harris to cement the precedent his usurpation set.
Odungo didn’t select him because he was smart....
MMMMMMM..........New BLOOD!.....................
That O’Rourke is even in the mix is an astounding admission of the stupidity and ignorance of Democrats.
Heterosexual white males are at a distinct disadvantage.
I’ve heard that the Kerry/Edwards ticket of 2004, is probably going to be the last Democrat ticket with two white heterosexual males.
Open season on this pervert.
Maybe Joe can give Obama a shoulder rub to repair the fractured bromance to end all bromances.
Obama means A New Blood...iow another black president.
“It LOOKS like tomato juice...but it sure doesn’t TASTE like tomato juice!” - Count Dracula for Campbell’s V-8, O Positive flavor.
Kinda scary...would they give Biden a complete transfusion of a young person’s blood? Or other parts? Before the first heart transplant was performed, Dick Tracy comics featured an evil surgeon who murdered young men for their hearts & transplanted them into old geezers who then became star athletes in their nineties.
Anyway, Uncle Creepy doesn’t know or doesn’t care about all those pix of him fondling little girls. The more fool he. Apparently Plugs isn’t radical enough for Obama’s taste.
But whoever the Dems put up in 2020 is going to be pureed into Grade triple Z grist by PDJT at the debates. Wish it could be AOC but Kalama Zoo Harris will do.
Clean and articulate. I like “former”.
LARRY SINCLAIR RESPONSE TO JOE BIDEN, ATTORNEY GENERAL BIDEN, DELAWARE, BIDENS AND OBAMA CAMP, SILENCE SINCLAIR, LARRY SINCLAIR POLITICAL PRISONER
August 23, 2008
Larry Sinclair has just responded to Joe Biden being selected as Obama’s vice presidential candidate and to Joe Biden’s son, the Attorney General of Delaware. Attorney General Biden of Delaware is threatening Larry Sinclair with a life sentence based on multiple offenses. The warrant in Delaware was fabricated and created shortly after Larry Sinclair came out with the YouTube video about his drug and sex encounter with Obama in November 1999. Joe Biden bought this vice presidential position by attempting to silence Larry Sinclair.
Here is the response from Larry Sinclair:
“August 23, 2008
SON OF DEM VP CHOICE TRIES TO THREATEN ME WITH LIFE 2 DAYS BEFORE FATHER IS CHOSEN FOR VP SLOT
Joseph R. Biden III, (right) son of presumptuous Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden II, through his Deputy Attorney General Susan Dwyer, threatens to seek a life sentence in a Delaware case that the Attorney General for Delaware has repeatedly refused to provide any documentation or discovery as requested and as is required by Delaware law.
From: Dwyer Susan (DOJ) [mailto:Susan.Dwyer@state.de.us]
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 5:11 PM
Subject: RE: Larry Sinclair
FYI…in talking with John Barber about the case today I realized that Mr. Sinclair is actually habitual eligible. That means I need written approval from a superior in order to offer anything less the charge and habit. Makes my misdemeanor offer seem really good, doesn’t it?
I am working on it, but not sure I will get approval for a straight up NP. If that is the case, why not take the chance at trial. Mr. Sinclair not willing to take a misdemeanor even if it means I am seeking habit status if I win at trial?
Susan
No, Mr. Sinclair is NOT willing to plead guilty to a crime that the Delaware Attorney Generals Office KNOWS has not been committed, and Mr. Biden KNOWS was brought against him simply to try and shut up the TRUTH about Barack Obama.
Joseph R.Biden II, Senator from Delaware did in June 2008 use his power in the US Senate to have the Social Security Administration stop my disability benefits two days before I was arrested in Washington, DC on a totally baseless warrant. In addition, it turns out that Senator Biden not only used his office and the office of his son, Joseph R Biden III, the Attorney General of Delaware, he had the SSA violate their own regulations which states benefits cannot be terminated if the charging State refuses to Extradite.
Delaware by way of a sealed Grand Jury Rule 9 Warrant, (for which the Delaware Attorney Generals Office has still failed to provide any copy of any returned money order) had an extradition range of 250 miles listed according to court documents. Senator and AG Biden’s puppet News-Paper the Delaware News-Journal of Wilmington, DE even went so far as to publish two completely false reports of the charge and case against me. Senator Joseph Biden and Delaware AG Biden’s personal friend and contributor’s, former Delaware Attorney General Richard Weir, even tried to create problems for me with the court by walking away from a sign retainer agreement and stated after entering said agreement he would “not represent” me “when you are saying all those things about Obama and the Bidens.”
Both Bidens have abused their office’s for political favors from Barack Obama. In addition, Barack Obama has used the Biden’s to try and shut me up, it will not happen. Joseph R. Biden II, the poster child for the “same old Washington insider” who cast his 10,000th vote in the US Senate in 1999, the same year Barack Obama smoked crack cocaine and engaged in gay sexual encounter in the back of a Limo and a Gurnee, IL hotel room with me, contradicts the very mantra of the Obama Campaign’s call for a “New Politics in Washington.”
It is now time that the American Media stop this protection of Barack Obama and let's report the truth.
I will expect Joseph R. Biden III to withdraw his office from this case immediately and to immediately produce the discovery that has been requested of his office now three times since August 11, 2008 alone.”
Read more from Larry Sinclair here:
http://larrysinclairbarackobama.com
http://larrysinclair0926.com
Poor Fredo, never to be trusted with the family business even though he’s shmart, not like they say.
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