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A top strategist for former President Barack Obama said he discouraged then-Vice President Joe Biden from running in the 2016 presidential election.
The University of Virginia’s Miller Center on Monday published an interview with Obama strategist David Plouffe, who was tasked with informing Biden that he should not run for president because he “could not win.” At the time, Biden was grieving the death of his son Beau Biden and was well behind Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
“What I would say is: ‘Listen, sir, first of all, I’m concerned about you as a human being. I’m not sure you’re in a state to run. But if this was six, seven months ago, it’s a different conversation. There’s no room. There’s just no room for you,’” Plouffe said.
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“Iowa is a tough state for you. New Hampshire is a tough state for you, Bernie’s going to win. And South Carolina, Hillary’s going to clean up there. There’s just no room for you,” he continued. “And by the way, Hillary’s not going to implode.”
Plouffe told Biden that Sanders wouldn’t implode, either.
“I think he ultimately accepted it, but I think it was more a couple of people around him. They really got him stirred up because part of it was, ‘Well, donors are telling us to run.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I know these donors. Let’s talk about them.’ It was a couple guys in California. I’m like, ‘That’s not a campaign. I get that Hillary is struggling in this campaign vis-a-vis Bernie. That’s true. But there’s no room for you in part because of that. Bernie and Hillary both are guaranteed 80 percent of this electorate,’” Plouffe said, adding that Clinton was better with Black voters than Biden at the time.
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Plouffe explained that he felt Biden would have struggled against now-President Donald Trump but “didn’t have the trust and character issues that Hillary” had with the electorate. He suggested Biden may have performed better than Clinton in some areas during the general election, but there was simply no path for him to get there.
“It’s like, Poor Joe. And my view is, listen, Biden’s career was over. Obama picked him to be vice president. And Biden was very clear he wasn’t going to run even before Beau [died]. But once Beau happened, of course you’re like, there’s no way it’s to going run,” Plouffe said.
“By the time he [Biden] kind of kicked the tires on this, we were just fully developed, two incredibly strong, vote-getting candidates,” he continued. “And Biden’s natural lane, White working-class, working union guys were kind of split between Sanders and Clinton, but they both had strong support.”
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Plouffe then shifted gears and said that many Democratic voters objected to former Vice President Kamala Harris receiving the 2024 nomination without the party holding a primary after Biden was essentially forced out of the race.
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“It really bothered voters more than I thought it would and kind of undercut any kind of authority around the danger Trump posed,” he said.
“And by the way, all these Democrats, as they saw it, had covered up Biden. And so, you put that together, which is Kamala kind of being installed in there and then the cover-up on Biden, as voters saw it. I mean, I don’t think the party has fully come to a full reckoning on that,” Plouffe added. “I don’t think we should belabor it, but I think every Democrat should obviously say, ‘Of course he shouldn’t have run. We know that now. A good president shouldn’t have run.’ And we should never again have a nominee that isn’t fully vetted by the voters and chosen by the voters.”
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