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DES MOINES It has become political lore, repeated on cable airwaves and by Democratic campaign consultants, even presidential candidates. In 2008, as the story goes, black voters were uncertain about Barack Obamas presidential candidacy until he won the Iowa caucuses, after which they rallied around him over the onetime front-runner, Hillary Clinton.

Some Democrats had suggested that a win in next Mondays Iowa caucuses could have a similar influence among black voters in South Carolina and elsewhere, to the detriment of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who leads among African-Americans in polls. But in reality, according to historical polling data and interviews with some advisers from the Obama campaign, Mr. Obamas political strength with black voters was stronger than many remember even as Mrs. Clinton was ahead in many polls in late 2007 and early 2008.

The persistence of the narrative that Iowa made Mr. Obama has long irritated some of his advisers, who said that this recollection from 2008 had led campaigns astray since then, discounted the agency of black voters and minimized the robust grass-roots strategy that Mr. Obamas team undertook in the South.

Cornell Belcher, Mr. Obamas chief pollster in South Carolina, said internal campaign polling data showed Mr. Obama surpassing Mrs. Clinton among black voters in South Carolina as early as November 2007, and leading throughout the entire state before Iowa voted. Public polling shows Mr. Obama with clear leads among black South Carolina voters through that November and December, with his numbers growing further after the Iowa caucuses.

Black voters arent waiting for white people to tell them what to do, Mr. Belcher said. Its racist. Its racial paternalism.

He added, Iowa gave Barack Obama the same thing it will give any candidate that surges and that beats the presumptive front-runner. It gives bounce and credibility but thats not just among black voting.

In applying lessons from Mr. Obamas Iowa victory to the current Democratic primary, Mr. Belcher and other political operatives have grim news for candidates hoping that a win in Iowa can reverse their luck with black and Latino voters across the country: dont count on it.

This includes Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who have showed little traction with black voters in state and national polls. In a new national poll released by ABC News and The Washington Post, 51 percent of black voters were behind Mr. Biden. The next closest candidate was Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who was at 15 percent.

Another recent poll of black voters from The Washington Post and Ipsos, showed Mr. Biden ahead by 60 percentage points with black voters aged 65 and older.

Mr. Belcher said campaigns seeking to challenge Mr. Biden in South Carolina had made a mistake waiting for this magic Iowa.

Its lazy thinking, he said. They think they dont have to put resources behind it, and is, in fact, taking a key constituency that they need for granted.

Valerie Jarrett, the former senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said any candidate looking to replicate their 2008 strategy required not only an organizing vision, but also significant resources.

Ms. Jarrett echoed Mr. Belcher, saying she thinks theres a good chance Mr. Obama would have won the black vote in South Carolina even if he hadnt been competitive in Iowa.

Him winning an overwhelming white state sent a message across the nation, she said. But was it the only factor? I dont think so.

How much the first nominating contest in Iowa truly matters as a political kingmaker has been debated for decades. In Iowa, it is common for voters to mention Mr. Obamas 2008 win as a point of pride, a justification for a state whose primary importance is under intense scrutiny. This election cycle, Iowans who support Mr. Sanders, Mr. Buttigieg, Ms. Warren or Ms. Klobuchar cite Mr. Obamas first campaign as a ready-made antidote to their candidates lagging status among black and Latino voters. Just do well in Iowa, they argue, and the other voters will follow.

But even as one of Mr. Bidens senior advisers describe South Carolina and black voters as his launching pad, there are signs his position may be more precarious than Mrs. Clintons in 2016 and Mr. Obamas in 2008. Mr. Biden also has below average favorability ratings and has struggled in particular with younger black voters. His polling lead among black voters is about 30 points, commanding but less than the 60-point advantage that Mrs. Clinton experienced in 2016.

Briahna Joy Gray, the national press secretary for Mr. Sanderss campaign, has said she believed that winning in the early states would help Mr. Sanders overcome skepticism.

For legitimate historical reasons, black voters tend to want to back the person they see as the most electable, Ms. Gray said late last year. And it sometimes takes a little bit longer to convince people that you are the right person to take out someone like Trump.

Mr. Sanderss campaign has been one of many to deploy this line of thinking. Former presidential candidates such as Senators Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, both of whom are black, had hoped to unlock support in South Carolina through strong Iowa finishes. At the end of her stump speech during her campaigns final months, Ms. Harris would tell Iowans about coming to the state during Mr. Obamas first run, and implored them to help her recreate that historic moment.

Mr. Buttigieg, who has gained traction among white liberals and moderates in Iowa and New Hampshire but has struggled to replicate his support nationwide, has cast himself repeatedly in the mold of Mr. Obama, also alluding to him during speeches on the trail.

The same state that took a chance on a young guy with a funny name, who a lot of folks didnt think could win 12 years ago, Mr. Buttigieg said in Council Bluffs recently, this state could help us make history one more time.

Ms. Jarrett said the importance of Iowa should be viewed through a broader lens. For Mr. Obama, it did not change the minds of black voters, but provided a stamp of legitimacy that was important for a first-time presidential candidate. In other races, including in 2004 when Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts won the Democratic primary, Iowa has been a springboard for the eventual nominee.

There were people looking for early signals that he was a competitive candidate, Ms. Jarrett said of Mr. Obama.

She also said campaigns should take other lessons from Mr. Obamas success, including his campaigns reliance on grass-roots organizing, digital advertising tools and modern voter targeting. She also said Mr. Obamas campaign had financial resources to sustain the operation a luxury some candidates this cycle had not had.

Ultimately, its a combination of strategies, Ms. Jarrett said. Being able to raise money is important as well, and you cant support a field organization if you dont have the money.

In South Carolina last week, at an event held by the Democratic Womens Council of Darlington County, voters expressed an openness to voting for someone other than Mr. Biden. But they were looking to be wooed, by a candidate and a message that spoke directly to their concerns not someone who had proven the ability to win by succeeding in Iowa.

This is on the individual person, Caroline Hannatt, 67, said. Why is Iowa so important? Iowa doesnt have any bearing on who I vote for.

Jannie Lathan, 69, said the priorities of Democrats in Iowa, an overwhelmingly white state, were not the same as those of Democrats in South Carolina.

Ill stick with the criteria I laid out, Ms. Lathan said.

This is about our issues, she added, meaning black people. Not about whos popular in the moment but our issues.

Originally posted here:
The One About Iowa, Black Voters and Barack Obama - The New York Times

Former Vice President Joe Biden is the Democratic candidate best fit to defeat President Donald Trump in the general election in November, says former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who served with Biden in the Obama administration.

Biden is the man to win the presidency, says Pritzker, in a newly released interview with Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer.

Besides Bidens electability, Pritzker pointed to his experience under Obama and as a U.S. Senator.

I think the vice president has the experience, both in domestic policy and politics, as well as globally the respect, in order to put the United States rightfully in the place it ought to be, says Pritzker, a major Democratic fundraiser who spoke to Serwer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.

Former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker interviewed during Yahoo Finance's Influencers.

Whether it's a leader in our economic policy, a leader in terms of our attitude towards multilateralism, or a leader in terms of the stature of the United States around the world, all of which are extraordinarily important, she adds.

Pritzker, a billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune and sister of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, endorsed Bidens candidacy earlier this month. In recent weeks, Biden has faced a difficult stretch in the campaign, as the impeachment trial has drawn attention to false but widespread allegations about misconduct committed by his son Hunter Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders surges in the polls.

Democratic primary voters will cast their first ballots on Monday, Feb. 3 in Iowa, followed soon after by contests in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina all of which will take place in February.

Pritzker made the comments during a conversation that aired in an episode of Yahoo Finances Influencers with Andy Serwer, a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.

After serving as national finance chair for Barack Obamas 2008 presidential campaign, she took a seat on Obamas Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. From 2013 to 2017, she held the position of Secretary of Commerce. Currently, she sits on the Microsoft (MSFT) board and is chairman of PSP Partners, a private investment firm.

The international standing of the U.S. has declined under Trump, Pritzker said.

I stay close to my peers, when I was in government, both in the United States and outside the United States, she says. Right now, many would say to me, the United States is off the playing field, or we don't think about what the United States is going to react if we take action whereas we used to.

Such circumstances require a reliable, longstanding leader like Biden, she added.

The vice president is the person with the integrity and the experience to deal with the situation that our country faces today, she says.

Max Zahn is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Find him on twitter@MaxZahn.

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The rest is here:
Why Joe Biden is 'the man to win the presidency, says former Obama official - Yahoo Finance

What if it were President Barack Obama who was the subject of the Senate impeachment trial? How would we feel then?

Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School, suggests a question along those lines in his book Impeachment: A Citizens Guide. Its one of several thought experiments that I suggest in order to step back from the hurly-burly in the Senate and interrogate our own principles and motivations.

The first approach, as Sunstein puts it, is this:

Suppose that a president engages in certain actions that seem to you very, very bad. Suppose that you are tempted to think that he should be impeached. You should immediately ask yourself: Would I think the same thing if I loved the presidents policies, and thought that he was otherwise doing a splendid job?

Alternatively, if you oppose impeachment and removal, Sunstein suggests you ask yourself: Would I think the same thing if I abhorred the presidents policies, and thought that he was otherwise doing a horrific job?

In practical terms, this amounts to: What if it were Obama who had been caught in this Ukraine scandal?

My guess is that if it were Obama, Republicans would be demanding witnesses (as they did in the 1999 trial of Bill Clinton). Given how aggressively Republican members of Congress pursued the Benghazi events multiple investigations, eventually finding no evidence of wrongdoing by either Obama or then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Im confident that the G.O.P. would be insisting that Obama be removed, with frequent chants of lock him up.

Yet I suspect that many Democrats would also switch sides, finding it easier to excuse misconduct by someone they admired and seeing it as more important in that situation to preserve executive privilege and leave it to voters to decide the matter in the fall. Thats why we owe it to ourselves, as a matter of intellectual honesty, to think through how we would react if it were the other guy on trial.

(Progressives may be scoffing that this exercise is unrealistic: Obama was meticulous in avoiding scandal and ethical conflicts. He checked with the Justice Department before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, and for him a scandal was something like wearing a tan suit. The Ukraine mess would have been out of character for Obama, while it is entirely in character for Trump. But Republicans will see this differently.)

The second thought experiment comes from another distinguished lawyer, Neal Katyal, in his new book Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump.

Imagine if it had worked, Katyal suggests. Imagine if our president had leveraged his role as commander in chief to convince a foreign power to open an investigation into his political opponent. Imagine if the presidents rival lost the primary because news broke that he was under investigation. Imagine if that meant the president faced a weaker candidate in November 2020 and won re-election as a result.

The foreign country could then blackmail our president by threatening to expose the corruption, gaining leverage over our foreign policy. Meanwhile, the president might abuse presidential power in other ways in the belief that impunity was complete. If all this eventually became public, and truth does have a way of trickling out, this would have devastating consequences for the legitimacy of American elections.

This thought experiment perhaps isnt so far-fetched. We know now that Trumps pressure on Ukraine caused alarm in the White House and the intelligence community, with National Security Adviser John Bolton likening it to a drug deal. Yet for all that uproar, it almost didnt become public. It was only because of a whistle-blower that the information began to emerge, and the military aid to Ukraine was released only after the White House became aware of the whistle-blower and was being pressured by Congress.

In short, Trumps plan almost succeeded and in any case, he will get away with it in the sense that he is sure to be acquitted by the Senate. When Republicans suggest that Trump did nothing wrong, what message does that impunity send to Trump and to future presidents?

The third thought experiment is simple: What if Trump werent president, but was like almost any other person in America?

What if he were a high school vice principal who ensured that a police detectives son would be accepted in advanced placement classes and then added, Id like you to do us a favor, though. The favor would be an investigation of the vice principals ex-wife before their upcoming child custody hearing, in hopes of tilting the outcome in his favor.

In that situation, the vice principal would be fired. We all recognize that no school official or other person in a government bureaucracy should use public power for private benefit.

So a last query: Shouldnt we have as high a standard for the president of the United States as for a school vice principal?

Read the original:
What if It Were Obama on Trial? - The New York Times

Before Pete Buttigieg launched into his remarks in Osceola, Iowa, on Tuesday, he wanted to let the crowd of a hundred of so at the county fairgrounds event center know that hed been there before. Well, not there at the event center, specificallythough he also wanted them to know that his husband, Chasten, standing in the back of the room, was a trophy-winning 4-H participantbut the small town itself, in rural Clarke County, about halfway between Des Moines and the Missouri state line.

I spent New Years in 2008 right here in Osceola, and we were volunteering, knocking on doors, a couple of us, for a young man with a funny name, he said. We were here when Iowa got the worlds attention when Barack Obama won here and started on the pathway to win the nomination.

Hmmmaybe youve heard of him? At this point, voters already knew the story. A few minutes earlier, theyd heard it from the chair of the county party, who introduced the former mayor of South Bend. Maybe theyd also read his recent interview about it in the Washington Post. (Come for the rare photo of Buttigieg wearing something other than a white dress shirt and blue tie; stay for the anecdote about his car going into a ditch.) Or maybe theyd heard him tell it at the state Democratic Partys Liberty and Justice Coalition Dinner in November. In the run-up to the caucus, Buttigieg is going all in on the Obama comparison, asking voters to remember 2008, ruminating about the meaning of hope, and floating the chance to make history one more time.

Obama has hovered over the 2020 field like a thick fog, a nebulous presence that candidates (or their supporters) can lay claim to but never quite wield as their own. Kamala Harris was the female Obama and Cory Booker Obama 2.0, though in retrospect, no they were not. Joe Biden, of course, was literally next in the line of succession to Obama at one point, and refers back to his work with Barack so often its almost a gulp word in his remarks. But Obama has not endorsed Biden, and Biden, for his part, has said he does not want Obama to endorse him, and in any event, Biden spent the run-up to the history-making 2008 caucuses knocking on doors for Joe Biden.

At the same time, the primary has forced an extended conversation about the 44th presidents legacy. During an early debate, for instance, Biden framed arguments for Warrens and Sanders Medicare for All proposals as an attack on the previous administration. The senator says shes for Bernie, Biden said of Warren. Well, Im for Barack. Biden has relished the role of defender of Obamas policies, at one point telling a debate moderator that a comparison between Obamas deportation regime and Trumps was close to immoral.

The policies are only a part of it. One thing Buttigieg is currently lacking is Obamas coalition of supporters: A nationwide poll Tuesday found him with zero-percent backing among African American voters, and while his message of generational change is quite popular among white senior citizens, its had considerably less traction among people of his actual generation. But Obama 2008 was also about a feelingand that feeling, more than anything, is what Buttigieg is trying hard to remind voters of in the closing week. As he wrapped up his remarks in Osceola (and again, a few hours later, in Indianola), Buttigieg returned rhetorically, if not by name, to the campaign he had opened with, only this time, the skinny young man with a funny name was him:

Id like to close by pointing out the role of hope at a time like this. And I know hope is an odd word to use given that it fell out of fashion in our politics, because of how weak and divided our climate is in Washington, but I also think it takes a bit of hope to get involved at all. And I also think theres a reason why, on the news, they took the word hopeful, turned it into a noun, and used it as another word for candidate.

So Im urging you to bottle up whatever hope compelled you into this room and made you think it was worth spending part of your Tuesday to be here right now. And if everybody does that, everybody were talking tothis coming Monday we are gonna make history one more time in a state that has a history of changing expectationsthat did it that night a few days after I was experiencing Osceola New Years for the first time, and changed what America thought a nominee could be.

Its not exactly subtle. But hey, its worked before.

Read the original:
Pete Buttigieg Is Really Leaning Into the Obama Thing - Mother Jones

Read: Wherever Obama turns, there Trump is

Obama has been careful in how hes publicly discussed his successor. Campaigning against Trump in 2016, Obama said several times that democracy is on the ballot, and he often portrayed the thenRepublican nominee as an easily triggered hate-monger who couldnt be trusted with the presidency. The night before the November election, at a closing rally in Philadelphia with Clinton, Obama said that the presidency reveals people for who they really are, and that Americans should be worried about what Trump had revealed about himself. Since then, Obama has largely stayed away from offering specific criticism of Trump. But he campaigned in 2017 and 2018 to defeat the presidents Republican allies, declaring, in a repeat of his 2016 message, that our democracys at stake.

Obama has never gone as far as using the word fascist in public, even though thats not an uncommon opinion, especially on the left. Journalists and academics who have lived in and studied fascist regimes regularly point to the traits Trump seems to share with those leaders, including demanding fealty, deliberately spreading misinformation, and adopting Joseph Stalins slur that the press is the enemy of the people. And thats not to mention Trumps apparent admiration for living authoritarians, such as Russias Putin, Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdoan, and North Koreas Kim Jong Un. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention, Trump gushed about Kim in a 2018 interview on Fox & Friends. I want my people to do the same.

In the footage from Hillary, Kaine seems to suggest that Obama wanted him to be more aggressive against Trump. He knows me and knows I tend to hold back, Kaine says. (This past November, Kaine referred to Trump as a tyrant in an interview on the Radio Atlantic podcast.)

In the Sundance interview, Clinton said that Obama had never used the word fascist in conversations with her about Trump. But, she said, what Obama observed was this populism untethered to facts, evidence, or truth; this total rejection of so much of the progress that America has made, in order to incite a cultural reaction that would play into the fear and the anxiety and the insecurity of peoplepredominantly in small-town and rural areaswho felt like they were losing something. And [Trump] gave them a voice for what they were losing and who was responsible.

In the documentary footage, Clinton also notes that she is scared and suspicious of what Trump is up to. His agenda is other peoples agenda, she says. Were scratching hard, trying to figure it out. He is the vehicle, the vessel for all these other people.

[Paul] Manafort, all these weird connections, Kaine replies, referring to Trumps former campaign chair, who is now in prison after being convicted of financial crimes related to his international business dealings.

[Michael] Flynn, who is a paid tool for Russian television, Clinton continues, referring to Trumps onetime national security adviser and former campaign surrogate. The way that Putin has taken over the political apparatus she starts to say. Then, a voice off camera interrupts her.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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Obamas 2016 Warning: Trump Is a Fascist - The Atlantic