By As the president continues to flounder in the polls and Democrats get more and more nervous about Trump returning to the White House, some liberals had hoped that a savior could swoop in to rescue them from Biden and Kamala. They dreamed of having Michelle Obama enter the Democratic National Convention like a hero ready to receive her crown.
It’s not going to happen.
David Axelrod, the Obama Family consigliere, had already made hints, but now the former First Lady herself has made it official. She has no interest in being president.
Somewhere Joe Biden is wiping sweat off his brow.
Democrats nervously looking ahead to November say they want to see Michelle Obama playing a bigger role in the campaign. Some even whisper about the possibility that she might replace a politically hobbled incumbent on the 2024 ticket this summer — making her a fantasy candidate for members of both parties, albeit for different reasons, writes NBC News.
In a statement to NBC News, the former first lady’s office tried to rein in imaginations on the right and the left, making it clear her 2024 plans don’t include running for office.
“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president,” said Crystal Carson, director of communications for her office. “Mrs. Obama supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign.”
Sources familiar with the discussions say she intends to assist the Biden campaign this fall, as she did four years ago. But as in 2020, her engagement is likely to be fairly limited compared to that of her husband, reflecting both her other commitments and her long-standing reluctance to re-enter the political fray full time, the sources said.
Although Michelle won’t be replacing Biden, that doesn’t mean Axelrod thinks Biden is pursuing the path to beating Trump. In a recent profile of the president’s reelection campaign, The New Yorker noted that Biden plans to base his pitch for another term not around what he’s done as president, but the more effervescent “defending democracy” obsession that has captured the minds of so many Democrats.
“Like Biden,” the magazine writes about the president’s top adviser Mike Donilon, “he has firm beliefs—about politics, the public, the press—and a contrarian side. In 2020, he and his campaign team had to decide whether to emphasize the economy or the more abstract idea that Trump imperiled the essence of America. ‘We bet on the latter,’ Donilon said, even though ‘our own pollsters told us that talking about ‘the soul of the nation’ was nutty.’ That experience fortified his belief that this year’s campaign should center on what he calls ‘the freedom agenda.’ By November, he predicted, ‘the focus will become overwhelming on democracy. I think the biggest images in people’s minds are going to be of January 6th.'”
When asked for his thoughts on the idea by the magazine, Axelrod, who helped guide Obama to two terms, was blunt: “I’m pretty certain in Scranton they’re not sitting around their dinner table talking about democracy every night.”
Biden will apparently be testing out his strategy on Thursday night during his State of the Union address.
The Daily Mail reported that “President Joe Biden will make the case for his stewardship of the country and attack rival Donald Trump and the ‘MAGA Republicans,’ all while asking voters whose side they want to be on.
The president has spent the weekend cloistered in Camp David with top aides working on his address, which will be laced with election-year politics.
In his remarks, Biden will ask Americans if they want lower health care costs, democratic freedoms and to keep Ukraine from being swallowed up by Russian leader Vladimir Putin? Or do they want to side with drug company profits, tax breaks for the wealthy and Putin?”
The outlet said that Biden and his team plan to hit the road following the State of the Union.The president intends to go to Pennsylvania and Georgia. while Kamala Harris travels to Arizona and Nevada.
Other cabinet officials are expected to go to additional swing states, including Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee.
[Read More: AOC Freaks Out As Tables Get Turned]
