Clinton was always Obama’s choice

“I’m not aware that he changed his mind at any point over the course of the primary,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest admitted shortly after Obama officially tapped Hillary Clinton as his favored successor.

Obama and his mouthpieces made a big show for months of not saying whom the superdelegate “who works in the Oval Office” would back before the final wave of Democratic voters had a chance to weigh in on Tuesday. Speaking in Elkhart, Ind., last week Obama explained that he wanted to respect Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and primary voters.

“What I’ve tried to do is to make sure that voters, rather than me big-footing the situation, are deciding the outcome,” he said.

But it became clearer and clearer in the last week that Obama, and by extension Clinton, were most concerned with not alienating the 10 million Americans who cast ballots for Sanders, and much less concerned about his pick.

The hints were everywhere that Obama considered Tuesday the end of the race, even though Democrats in the District of Columbia still haven’t had their say. D.C.’s primary is next Tuesday.

In the same town hall in Elkhart, Obama said: “I think we’ll probably have a pretty good sense next week of who the nominee will end up being,” a line Earnest repeated even after Obama taped his video endorsement of Clinton.

Shortly after the White House released the endorsement video, Earnest admitted it was recorded on Tuesday.

Nonetheless, he insisted it wasn’t disrespectful to Sanders to host him at the White House Thursday morning in what was clearly perfunctory meeting meant for the cameras to show admiration and part unity.

“I would not describe the meeting as a formality because I think the president is deeply respectful of Sen. Sanders and the campaign that he has run,” Earnest explained. “So, again, they had a serious conversation about the stakes of the upcoming general election and about the future of the Democratic Party, something that both candidates are quite interested in.”

“And look, Sen. Sanders began his statement in the driveway in front of the White House today by saying that President Obama and Vice President Biden had made a commitment to him early in the process that they would not put their thumb on the scale,” Earnest said. “And Sen. Sanders himself said how much he appreciated that President Obama and Vice President Biden kept that promise.”

“Let me begin by thanking President Obama and thanking Vice President Biden for the degree of the impartiality they established during the course of this entire process,” Sanders said then.

In the same remarks, Sanders promised to see the primary season through to Tuesday’s end but made clear he would only push his issues, not his candidacy, in Philadelphia next month at the national convention.

“These are some of the issues that many millions of Americans have supported during my campaign,” Sanders said about his campaign’s themes of economic inequality and more equal distribution of political power away from the wealthiest. “These are the issues that we will take to the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia at the end of July.”

And in case that wasn’t what Sanders meant with his convention remarks, Earnest simultaneously underscored that Obama took it that way while continuing the White House narrative that Obama has always intended to let Sanders decide his campaign’s fate.

“So, Sen. Sanders has earned the right to make his own decisions about his campaign on a timeframe of his choosing,” Earnest said. “But the president came away from the conversation feeling quite good about it,” he added in answering whether Obama believes the subject of who is the party’s nominee closed.

Although the fix was probably in for Clinton with Obama all along, it doesn’t negate the White House’s other narrative that Obama believes a prolonged primary fight strengthens a candidate.

Obama himself repeatedly says how slugging it out with Clinton in 2008 steeled him for November.

Obama praised Sanders in his endorsement of Clinton, crediting him with bringing in new voters. Obama said Sanders ran “an incredible campaign.”

Then he paid Sanders a backhanded compliment.

“I had a great meeting with him this week and thanked him for shining the spotlight on issues like economic inequality, and the outsized influence of money in our politics,” Obama said, letting slip that the message was recorded prior to their private meeting Thursday morning.