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Obama endorses Biden, slams politics of ‘meanness’
The former president also called for Americans to unite in a “great awakening” against current-day politics, which he said was characterized, among other things, by “just plain meanness”.
Former President Barak Obama on Tuesday endorsed his former vice-president Joe Biden for the 2020 White House race saying he has the character and experience to guide the country through “one of our darkest times” and heal it through its recovery.
The former president also called for Americans to unite in a “great awakening” against current-day politics, which he said was characterized, among other things, by “just plain meanness”.
Obama, who remains one of the most popular and revered Democrat in the country, had held off on his endorsement of his former deputy as be believed, his office said in a statement, that for Democrats to do well in November, Democratic voters should be allowed to pick their own nominee.
That process formally ended in way Monday as Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed the former vice-president, following up the suspension of his own bid for the party nomination earlier.“Choosing Joe to be my Vice President was one of the best decisions I ever made, and he became a close friend,” former President Obama said in a video message.
“And I believe Joe has all the qualities we need in a President right now.”The former president went on to list the high points of Biden’s role as his vice-president — led the recovery from the 2008 recession, helped him manage the H1N1 and Ebola outbreaks and restore American leadership in combating nuclear proliferations and climate change.“Joe has the character and the experience to guide us through one of our darkest times and heal us through a long recovery,” Obama said.
“Right now,” he added in a barely concealed swipe at President Donald Trump’s politics, “we need Americans of goodwill to unite in a great awakening against a politics that too often has been characterized by corruption, carelessness, self-dealing, disinformation, ignorance, and just plain meanness. And to change that, we need Americans of all political stripes to get involved in our politics and our public life like never before.”
Obama will be campaigning for Biden and other Democrats up and down the ticket as he did in the 2018 elections when the party won back control of the House of the Representatives.
The former president and his erstwhile deputy were friends indeed, as Obama noted in the endorsement. Even while in office, they were seen close, as were their families. Obama delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Beau Biden, Biden’s eldest son who died of brain cancer in 2015.
The two have remained close since, unlike others such as Former President Bill Clinton and his deputy Al Gore, who barely speak to each other; or Former President George W Bush and his vice-president Dick Cheney, who had worked closely while in office but, as Cheney said later, they were not friends.
