MSNBC anchor Jonathan Capehart argued that former President Barack Obama’s influence over the Democratic Party has sometimes been stifling for a younger generation of leaders who seek to shape the future of the party.
“The Obama people come in, they’re the new blood, and now people are starting to complain, ‘Oh my God, the Obama people, they’re running everything.’ Some of the criticism, I think, is valid,” Capehart said, referencing complaints that Obama-era staffers had of former President Bill Clinton’s advisors dominating party politics.
Despite Obama’s entrance into national politics coming almost 20 years ago, his influence on the Democratic Party, especially through his former campaign staffers and advisors, only seems to have grown. Obama campaign alums, including Mitch Stewart and Rufus Gifford, also worked on former President Biden’s campaign, according to NBC News. Other Obama campaign alums helped lead former Vice President Kamala Harris’ failed presidential bid.
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Capehart argued the persistent influence of Obama alums throughout the campaign world has also created an arrogance among the Obama “class” of political advisors.
“Sometimes you get a sense that they think they know everything, they run the world, and in some cases you can understand it because, well, they did win two presidential elections,” the MSNBC anchor said of Obama’s staffers.
Capehart called on the Obama generation to make way for the “next generation” in Democratic Party politics.
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“At a certain point, that class of folks has to start listening to the next generation coming up because they have ideas, they have ways of reaching out to the voters, to men, to the Obama coalition that they just don’t have. They don’t have the feel for it because they’re not from that generation,” he said.
Capehart said Obama has intentionally made himself “scarce” because some Democrats expect that he will “save the day.”
“I think that’s one of the primary reasons why I think President Obama has been scarce, is that everyone’s looking for him to save the day. And what they keep saying is, ‘No, no, no, no, it’s not about us. It’s about you.’ And it seems like the party can’t seem to come to grips with that and deal with that,” Capehart said.
Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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