President Obama’s implicit support of Labor Secretary Tom Perez in the race for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship has put him at odds with the progressive and Democratic establishment leaders who back Rep. Keith Ellison, setting Obama up for a post-presidency battle over the future of his party.
While most presidents have focused on philanthropy, their memoirs or advocacy after leaving the White House, Obama has signaled his intention to remain deeply involved in Democratic politics when he leaves office Jan. 20.
That may include guiding Perez to the helm of the party amid a period of turmoil and uncertainty for defeated Democrats.
“It is unusual, but it doesn’t mean that it’s unnecessary,” Ronald Keith Gaddie, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma, said of Obama’s post-presidency plans.
“Barack Obama has always been fixated on his legacy,” Gaddie added. “Barack Obama has always been about being a historic figure.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and progressive Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders all lined up quickly behind Ellison in the race for DNC chairman after President-elect Trump’s victory in November.
Support for Ellison, a left-wing Minnesotan who became the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006, is viewed by many Democrats as support for the party’s recent focus on social issues and identity politics.
Perez, meanwhile, has pitched himself as someone who can marry progressivism with pragmatism in the same style as the party’s still-popular president.
Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, said Obama may sense a threat to his policy legacy in the effort to steer the party toward someone such as Ellison.
“I think he is a centrist Democrat, and he may very well worry that the Warren-Sanders wing of the party has too much influence,” Bannon said.
“You look at Bernie Sanders’ campaign, he didn’t really like Obamacare, he kept pushing for a much more aggressive ‘Medicare for all’ health program as opposed to Obamacare,” Bannon said. “I think that there may be some concern about the policy implications of the party going in the Ellison direction rather than the Perez direction.”
In the wake of Hillary Clinton’s upset defeat, some Democrats have pointed fingers at her narrow pursuit of identity groups, a strategy that left her unappealing to the millions of middle-income white Americans who put Trump over the edge. Because many down-ballot candidates echoed her campaign’s tone, Democrats lost many of what they thought were winnable races for House and Senate seats as well.
Further Democratic losses could put Obama’s signature achievements in serious jeopardy — beyond the Affordable Care Act and climate change regulations, which Trump and Republican lawmakers have vowed to kill.
“He sees his legacy in policy, not politics,” Bannon said, noting that Obama’s focus on preserving his policy legacy could be the force driving him to intervene in the DNC battle.
“It’s a pretty clear signal that he’s just not going to sit around and watch Republicans dismantle his legacy,” Bannon added.
Obama’s advice for Democrats since Clinton’s defeat has been remarkably blunt. Although he campaigned vigorously for the vanquished nominee, he has since chastised her for failing to “show up” in the rural communities that she ceded to Trump.
The president has encouraged “latte-sipping liberals” in coastal cities to attend more “fish frys” and attempt to connect with voters who might naturally view Democratic policies with skepticism.
“The thing is, what he’s saying about them is what everybody was saying about him, which is ‘Barack Obama needs to appeal to the ordinary American,'” said Gaddie. “He’s actually reflecting back a criticism that was leveled at him.”
Obama’s tacit support of Perez, his labor secretary, could be seen as an overture to the white working-class voters who Clinton failed to sway.
Ellison, on the other hand, accused Republicans of trying to suppress minority votes in the wake of Trump’s victory and has frequently used the kind of racially charged language that Clinton deployed unsuccessfully against Trump during the presidential race. His blueprint for the Democratic revival appears to involve lurching further to the left, rather than scaling back rhetoric, on controversial social issues such as transgender bathrooms to give them broader appeal.
Beyond the debate over the party’s messaging, Democrats are coming to grips with another hurdle on their horizon: a lack of rising talent from which to draw future leaders.
“The Democrats have an incredibly thin bench. They have record low numbers of governors and U.S. senators, record low numbers of U.S. representatives,” Gaddie said.
Indeed, Democratic control of governors’ mansions and state legislatures hit historic lows in November, trimming further the field of elected officials who could climb up the political ladder to become congressmen, senators or presidential candidates.
Obama already has positioned himself to address the talent gap in his post-presidency. He recently told NPR that he hopes to offer aspiring Democrats “whatever resources, credibility, [and] spotlight that I can bring to help them rise up.”
“What I am interested in is just developing a whole new generation of talent,” Obama said.
When he leaves Washington on Marine One after Trump’s inauguration, Obama will leave his party leaderless for the first time in nearly a decade.
It’s part of why the race for DNC chairman has evolved into such a highly symbolic battle for the heart and soul of the party. It’s also part of why Obama may feel compelled to participate in rebuilding the Democratic ranks that were depleted on his watch.
“The Democrats are in a bit of a generational trough right now,” Gaddie said, suggesting the party’s old guard may share blame for some of the “unforced errors” that cost Democrats all three branches of government this cycle. “It’s really a bunch of baby boomers trying to hold onto power after their day has passed.”
