It seem The Organizer is trying to shape who becomes the Dem nominee for 2020. From The Hill:
Democrats are expressing concern that advisers and aides to former President Obama have already begun signaling which candidate they might support for the White House in 2020.
Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest confidantes, and David Simas, the CEO of Obama’s foundation, have sent smoke signals urging former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) to enter the race.
Simas, who once served as a top aide to Patrick, is an ardent supporter of the former governor, sources tell The Hill, while Jarrett has privately told friends that she would do what it takes to support him.
And Politico reported last month that Jarrett believes a President Patrick is “what my heart desires.”…
Axios’s Mike Allen mentioned Patrick as a favorite in Obamaworld in his popular newsletter on Friday…
It seems Obama has a level of control over Deval (the well spoken black man) but perhaps not Kamala (the more angry-sounding black woman from the other coast):
One top Obama fundraiser, however, said it’s clear the inner circle has a clear favorite in Patrick and that it’s no coincidence they’ve put that storyline out there.
“It’s blatantly overt,” the fundraiser said told The Hill.
The fundraiser speculated that one reason Obama’s circle is putting out smoke about Patrick is to take away oxygen from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).
“A lot of people in our world see Deval as the one who will carry the Obama legacy. Kamala has labeled herself as the female Obama, but Deval was Obama before Obama was Obama,” the fundraiser said.
Many don’t realize that Patrick’s 2006 gubernatorial win in MA was the direct precursor of The One’s POTUS win in 2008. Both campaigns were, to large extents, masterminded by David Axelrod. A full year before Obama’s run, Deval’s campaign slogan alternated between “Yes We Can” and “Together We Can”, both playing on the sensibilities and gullibilities of idealist liberal whites.
One could say both the Patrick campaign and the Obama campaign were variations of the same Magic Negro trope.
Still, a Deval POTUS run could face some serious optical hurdles.
First, for several years now, Patrick has been a Managing Director at the dastardly Bain Capital, famous for being an MSM-fueled albatross around Mitt Romney’s neck. How will St. Deval get around that embarrassment? He and the media will likely spin Patrick’s tenure at EvilCorp as being done solely for the ‘public good’, even though the same could have been said about Romney’s own philanthropic efforts.
There’s also this Willie Horton-like ‘whoops’ incident from Patrick’s past, which, in our inflamed era of hyper-racialized politics, could hurt Deval with working class whites:
The [2006] general election was very heated, described by former governor Michael Dukakis as “the dirtiest gubernatorial campaign in my memory”. Patrick faced criticism for having once written letters to the parole board describing correspondence from Benjamin LaGuer, a man convicted of a brutal eight-hour rape, as “thoughtful, insightful, eloquent, [and] humane”.
Patrick contributed $5,000 towards the DNA testing which linked LaGuer to the crime. However, once the DNA test proved LaGuer’s guilt, Patrick withdrew his support for the inmate’s release.