President Joe Biden found himself back in former President Barack Obama’s shadow on Tuesday when the two appeared together to celebrate 12 years of Obamacare.
Biden served as vice president for two terms under Obama before winning the White House in his own right on the third try. But there was little doubt which of the two Democrats is still viewed as the top dog inside their party.
“My name is Joe Biden, I’m Barack Obama’s vice president,” Biden said to cheers from the crowd, recognizing his old boss’s star power. “And I’m Jill Biden’s husband.” The joke about the first lady received a much more muted response.
Obama opened by driving the point home himself. “Thank you, Vice President Biden,” the former president said. “Vice President — that was a joke.” Obama stepped away from the podium, strode past Vice President Kamala Harris, and embraced Biden. “That was all setup,” he said when he returned to the microphone.
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Viral images circulated after the event showing the crowd mobbing Obama while Biden walked around aimlessly with no one talking to him. A communications adviser to Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted, “According to a TV Eyes search of Barack Obama’s speech at the White House today, he used the words ‘I,’ ‘I’m,’ ‘me,” and ‘my’ 33 times. Obama used the word ‘I’ 20 times while standing next to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
Polls show that Obama remains more popular with the Democratic base than Biden. A Morning Consult/Politico poll found that Obama and his wife, Michelle, were the two most popular speakers at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, which nominated Biden and Harris, with 91% of Democrats viewing them favorably. “We need a jolt of energy right now, and no one brings that more than Obama,” a Democratic strategist told the Hill prior to Tuesday’s event.
Obama is a gifted and charismatic orator. Biden’s speeches tend to ramble, and he is known for his gaffes when he goes off-script. The contrast between the two was apparent when they spoke about the Affordable Care Act.
Even at 60, Obama is noticeably more youthful than the 79-year-old Biden. Already the oldest man ever to be president, older when he took the oath of office than Ronald Reagan was when he retired, Biden will turn 80 shortly after this year’s elections.
While this was Obama’s first return trip to the White House since he left office in 2017 following the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, he has been used to gin up enthusiasm where Biden could not before. Obama most recently gave a pep talk to congressional Democrats ahead of a challenging midterm election. He also sought to rally environmental activists at a major international climate conference, traveling to Glasgow with the Biden team.
Obama told the adoring audience not to give up on their climate goals, saying, “Cynicism is the resource of cowards. We can’t afford hopelessness.”
Even under Obama, the midterm elections could have been hopeless. In his first such election in 2010, Republicans gained 63 House seats in a Tea Party wave the 44th president described as a “shellacking.” But the Democrats are defending much narrower majorities now, including a 50-50 deadlocked Senate they only control due to Harris’s tiebreaking vote, and Biden inspires little enthusiasm.
Democrats hope that Obama can nevertheless restore the base’s enthusiasm and optimism. “Joe Biden and I did a lot together,” Obama said at the White House. “We helped save the global economy, made record investments in clean energy. We put guardrails on our financial system. We helped turn the auto industry around. Repealed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ But nothing made me prouder than providing better healthcare and more protections to millions of people across this country.”
“So — so when President Biden said he was not going to just celebrate the ACA, but also announce actions that would make it even better, I had to show up,” the ex-president added.
Biden returned the compliments. “I can tell you all how much Barack Obama cared about getting this done,” he said. “Throughout the countless hours of negotiations and the relentless political attacks, he never, ever, ever gave up. And I guarantee you that.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki emphasized that Biden and Obama were “real” friends. But Obama did not encourage his vice president to seek the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton in 2016. He also did not endorse Biden four years later until he had already clinched the nomination.
Obama has been quoted as saying of Biden, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up.” Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta once described Biden as loyal to Obama and said, “To some extent, [Biden] oftentimes felt that that loyalty was not being rewarded.”
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But there is a risk that Obama upstages Biden in ways that reinforce Democrats’ dissatisfaction with the current president. Independents have already turned against Biden, who is also massively unpopular with Republicans.
With polls showing considerable doubt, even among Democrats, about Biden or Harris leading the ticket in 2024, there has been speculation about Obama playing kingmaker in the primaries. A former two-term president, Obama is not constitutionally eligible to run again himself.
