Short of actually endorsing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama has heaped praise on his 2008 rival who then became his Secretary of State, calling her “good, smart, tough” and someone who can start governing from day one.
At the same time. he views Senator Bernie Sanders, her challenger for the Democratic nomination, as someone who has “great authenticity, great passion, and is fearless”.
Dropping the customary reticence of a sitting President commenting on contestants vying for his own party’s presidential ticket, Obama discussed the candidacies of Clinton and Sanders in the course of an interview to Politico, released on Monday.
It happened to be a day when they along with former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley were to participate in a CNN Democratic Town Hall, offering their closing arguments for the Iowa caucuses, which will kick off the long-winded presidential nomination process.
Even while “labouring to remain neutral”, Obama “couldn’t hide his obvious affection for Clinton or his implicit feeling that she, not Sanders, best understands the unpalatably pragmatic demands of a presidency he likens to the world’s most challenging walk-and-chew-gum exercise”, Politico noted.
“look, I’ve gotten to know Hillary really well, and she is a good, smart, tough person who cares deeply about this country,” Obama said, yet speaking of a “disadvantage” she faces as someone who has been “in the public eye for a long time and in a culture in which new is always better”. Sanders, in contrast, had the virtue of saying exactly what he believed, with the attitude that he had nothing to lose, he commented.
Both Clinton and Sanders are “passionate about giving everybody a shot”, Obama said, whereas Sanders’ own campaign thrust has been on the deep differences with Clinton over a host of issues, notably regulating Wall Street and taxing the rich heavily.
“I think Bernie came in with the luxury of being a complete longshot and just letting loose,” Obama said, while Clinton by virtue of her sheer experience can govern from day one. At the same time, he felt her strengths could also be her weaknesses in the presidential race, making her “more cautious and her campaign more prose than poetry”.
At the CNN Town Hall in Des Moines, Iowa on Monday night, Clinton said she was “really touched” by Obama’s praise for her even as she pressed her credentials in the face of the mounting challenge from Sanders, who has struck a chord with younger voters.
In the latest CNN Poll of Polls, Clinton, who once held a big lead in Iowa, is now just marginally ahead of Sanders (46 per cent to 44 per cent). And in New Hampshire, which holds its primary a week later on February 9, Sanders continues to top Clinton. Nationally, however, Clinton is way ahead with 52 per cent as against Sanders’ 38 per cent.
Sanders, in his comments at the Town Hall, drove home his distinctive positions vis-à-vis Clinton not only on Wall Street regulation, but on other major issues such as the Iraq war, trade and Keystone Pipeline.
As for Clinton’s assertions over her experience for the top job, Sanders suggested that she lacked judgement on some key issues, including her vote in support of former President George W Bush’s push for the Iraq war.
“We need a political revolution,” Sanders said, adding: “We are touching a nerve with the American people
who understand that establishment politics is just not good enough.”