Barack Obama Not Expected To Endorse Joe Biden Or Anyone Else
Former vice president Joseph Biden announced Thursday that he is indeed running for president for the third time, as reported earlier today by The Inquisitr. In the campaign, Biden will draw on his long career in public service, including the eight years he spent as vice president under former president Barack Obama.
Obama, however, has not endorsed his former vice president. And don’t expect him to back Biden, or any other 2020 Democratic contender, at any point during the primary process. According to Deadline, former Obama campaign and White House aide David Axelrod said on television Thursday that Obama is keeping with the established norm of current and former presidents not endorsing candidates in subsequent presidential primaries.
In the 2016 race, Obama did not endorse Hillary Clinton’s candidacy until after she had clinched the Democratic nomination. He backed Clinton in a video in June of 2016, per Politico, and went on to frequently appear at rallies throughout the general election campaign.
Obama did, however, issue a statement praising his former vice president.
“President Obama has long said that selecting Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 was one of the best decisions he ever made,” spokeswoman Katie Hill said, adding that Obama frequently relied on Biden’s advice, both during his presidential campaigns and in the White House.
Per Vanity Fair, Biden came forward and expressed his support for the legalization of same-sex marriage, inspiring Obama to do the same not long after.
Biden was known to have considered a presidential bid in 2016, shortly after the death of his son, former Delaware state attorney general Beau Biden. He ultimately decided against a run, announcing his decision alongside Obama in a Rose Garden ceremony in October of 2015, and Biden went on to act as a campaign surrogate for Clinton throughout the 2016 general election.
Biden faces a fundamental challenge as he seeks his party’s nomination for the White House: Convincing the diverse and youthful Obama coalition that a 76-year-old white man is the right person to carry the mantle https://t.co/fUSmCNyjwG
— POLITICO (@politico) April 25, 2019
As discussed in the aforementioned Inquisitr report, Biden talked about the deadly Charlottesville far-right rally in 2017, and President Donald Trump’s subsequent comments about how the rally’s participants included “some very fine people” on both sides. The three-and-a-half minute video also quotes the Declaration of Independence, praises the civil rights movement, and lays out his vision for a Biden presidency.
“I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time,” the former vice president says in the video of Trump’s presidency, while warning that Trump will “fundamentally alter the character of this nation” if he gets a full two terms in office.
