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Barack Obama is stepping away from the sidelines and finally gearing up for the presidential race of 2020. He has stayed impressively quiet over the past few years as his successor has taken over the White House, and has hesitated at expressing support for one candidate, in particular, to run against him next year.
No more. Last night at a Silicon Valley donor event, Barack Obama took the kid gloves off and got serious with about 100 of the richest and most politically influent people in that area.
Apparently concerned for what the future could hold, Obama is now imploring voters to “chill out” and come together, or they could lose the White House yet again.
No stranger to politics, Obama started to ramp up his conversation about the upcoming election in the past few weeks. Last week, during an appearance he made in front of Democratic donors, he started testing the waters.
“The average American doesn’t think that we have to completely tear down the system and remake it,” He warned the group. “There are a lot of persuadable voters and there are a lot of Democrats out there who they just want to see things make sense. They just don’t want to see crazy stuff.”
Obama has long been wary of candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who look to shake things up in a big way. What Obama is saying, and has been hinting at for even longer, is that if we put these as the frontrunners for the 2020 race, it’s possible they will alienate a lot of voters.
Obama spoke at a fundraiser for the Democratic party last night that sold tickets for hundreds of thousands each. While there, he told those in attendance to “chill out” over their debate of who the best candidate to run is.
He explained that even if they aren’t “your perfect candidate, I don’t care.”
“But gin up about the prospect of rallying behind whoever emerges from this process and making sure that we’re hitting the ground running… The choice is so stark and the stakes are so high that you cannot afford to be ambivalent in this race.”
The core message that Obama was pushing was unity. Unity among the party, and reconnecting with core beliefs.
The fundraiser was expected to raise about $3 million for the Democratic National Committee.
A longtime Obama advisor had this to say about Obama’s return to politics, “He sees himself as a ref, not a player. What he’s saying is, ‘Hey, let’s not put so much passion into the intramurals that we forget to show up for the actual game’.”
