Former President Obama hasn’t tipped his hand about a favorite in the 2020 Democratic fight. But Deval Patrick’s entry into the primary race makes life more difficult for Joe Biden, who frequently tries to portray himself as the second coming of his friend “Barack.”
Patrick, the Massachusetts governor from 2007 to 2015, is personally close with Obama. The Harvard Law School graduates, who were introduced by a mutual acquaintance in the 1990s when Obama was running for state Senate in Illinois. Patrick, 63, was elected only the nation’s second black state chief executive two years before Obama made history as America’s first African American president. And they share a brand of practical, progressive politics, liberal in their outlook but conditioned to working within the political system.
The relationship between Obama, 58, and Biden, 76, was almost entirely political at the outset in 2008, when Biden was chosen as Obama’s running mate because he was an elder statesman with extensive Washington and foreign policy experience who could also appeal to white, working-class voters. Although genuine personal warmth between them developed, Obama leaned on Biden to stay out of the 2016 campaign, when Hillary Clinton was the front-runner.
Patrick, a Bain Capital managing director until earlier this week, had told top party officials he was worried about the state of the race, questioning Biden’s ability to excite Democrats and bridge the divide between centrists and liberals. He spoke to Obama as recently as Wednesday and said that the former president conveyed the “same concerns” that Democrats needed to reach for “not just the best of our party, and not just the best of our supporters, but the best of America.”
“Right now, we have a really talented, really gifted, and a very hardworking and hard-sacrificing field of Democratic candidates, many of them my personal friends,” Patrick told CBS. “But we seem to be migrating to, on the one camp, sort of nostalgia: ‘Let’s just get rid, if you will, of the incumbent president and we can go back to doing what we used to do.’ Or: ‘It’s our way, our big idea, or no way.’ And neither of those, it seems to me, seizes the moment to pull the nation together and bring some humility, that frankly we have a lot of ideas but no one candidate, no one party, has the corner on all the best ideas.”
Responding via Twitter to conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, former top Obama strategist David Axelrod said Thursday: “@DevalPatrick is a friend and past client when I was in the campaign world. I admire him and agree when your assessment that he is formidable.”
We seem to migrating to having one camp, nostalgia: getting rid of the incumbent president and then doing what we used to do, and another camp: “It’s our big idea or no way.”
Neither of those seizes the moment to pull the nation together. pic.twitter.com/iZNTjYeifl
— Deval Patrick (@DevalPatrick) November 14, 2019
Patrick, a top Justice Department official in President Bill Clinton’s administration, was explicitly critical of Biden when he filed his bid in New Hampshire. “I think that the instinct that the campaign seems to have to project in effect, if we just get rid, if you will, of the incumbent, we can go back to doing what we used to do, misses the moment,” he said.
2020 Watch: After filing in N.H. for #FITN presidential primary, @DevalPatrick says he’s “a big, big fan of Joe Biden” BUT adds that @JoeBiden campaign “misses the moment” #2020Election #nhpolitics #mapoli #DevalPatrick #JoeBiden pic.twitter.com/r9B3zoCqml
— Paul Steinhauser (@steinhauserNH1) November 14, 2019
Tom Cochran, a partner at public affairs firm 720 Strategies and former Obama White House director of New Media Technologies, said he thought Democrats “were heading in the right direction of fewer candidates and a more manageable debate lineup” until Patrick declared his candidacy.
He said Obama alumni were “sprinkled throughout” the existing 2020 Democratic primary campaigns, but the late entrance reflected concerns about Biden. “I wouldn’t say an intentional jab, but it certainly sends a message rooted in lack of party confidence,” he said.
David Karol, a University of Maryland political science professor, said: “There are some people behind the scenes in the Democratic elite, maybe people who have been close to President Obama, who lack confidence in Joe Biden.”
