Looking like a winner!
There's a WaPo
piece which expresses 'surprise' that the candidates, especially Hillary Clinton, heaped praise on President Obama. I don't know why they are surprised. President Obama isn't George W. Bush, leaving office after being abandoned by his party and the rest of the country. He's a strong incumbent leaving office with a record of being the only man to win 51% of the vote or better, twice, since Eisenhower. He's the only Democrat to do it since FDR. His party has never abandoned him. Yeah, you'd be a fool to run
from that. These Democrats are no fools. Well, except Jim Webb. Fuck him.
Instead, Democrats ran to him. Especially Clinton, who earned the praises of both 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe and 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina:
"Commanding night for @HillaryClinton. Showed again her vision, leadership. Good sign for Dems," former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote on Twitter.
Another former Obama political adviser, David Plouffe, also praised her on Twitter: "@HillaryClinton tonight looked like someone who can win" in a general election.
Indeed, Democrats should take heart that Clinton is looking confident out there, able to separate from the President when she needs to and wedding herself tightly to him. This is the key advantage she has. As I wrote two years ago here:
I'm going to be brief and direct.
You want to know why Hillary Clinton is leading among all Democrats by huge margins? It is simple: She is the only Democrat big enough to separate from President Obama in 2016 and still win a general election. You can't name anybody else who can do that.
Because let us face facts: there is only one person in this country who has 65 million votes to his credit and a winning coalition that is only growing in size. Keep it together and we win. That is, for those of us who consider winning important.
As a tactical matter, praise from these two should help move that Chicago and Silicon Valley money that has been sitting on the sidelines to go ahead and push chips.