Former President Barack Obama told Zohran Mamdani “your campaign has been impressive to watch,” and suggested that he was invested in Mr. Mamdani’s success beyond the election.
Former President Barack Obama called New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Saturday, praising his campaign and offering to be a “sounding board” into the future.
The private, roughly 30-minute phone call, which has not previously been reported, was described by two people who participated or were briefed immediately on what had been said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private conversation.
Mr. Obama said that he was invested in Mr. Mamdani’s success beyond the election on Tuesday. They talked about the challenges of staffing a new administration and building an apparatus capable of delivering on Mr. Mamdani’s agenda of affordability in the city, the people said.
If Obama wanted to give a fuck about the future of the party, it was in 09 or 13 when he could name literally anyone he wanted as DNC chair…
The first time he just flat out didn’t give a name, 13 he just went with the neoliberal because he had basically ran all his stuff himself out of spite of the DNC siding with Hillary.
Because he didn’t understand how fucking powerful naming a chair is.
Because of those two (non) picks, the DNC was “broke” for the 2016 primary and took Hillary’s deal stopping Bernie and setting up trump as the Republican candidate so voters would hate both and Hillary might win.
Like …
Sure, second best time to plant a shade tree is today, but the entire country rallied together to get Obama and he let his ego hand the party back to neoliberal.
This is relevant because if people fuck around and let a neoliberal name the next chair, we’ll never get it back. We need to be cognizant that we’re not just picking a presidential candidate, we’re picking the future of the party if they win the general.
Between this and another comment on the same topic in another thread, I get the impression you think Obama is progressive and failed to appoint a progressive DNC chair out of ignorance. Have you considered the possibility that he’s actually neoliberal and refused power to progressives on purpose?
His political career up to that point, considered alongside his campaign and the absolute din of his first two years in office, to me paints a picture of a sincere but outspoken dreamer whose tropical personality was much better at whistling up a storm than steering his ship into it.
I think it’s fair to describe many aspects of his platform as “progressive” but ultimately he took no for an answer too often to actually be one in hindsight. I won’t diminish the good work he did, and respect the many firsts he achieved, but his lingering imposter syndrome kept him from using the mandate we gave him while he had the chance.
He could have fought to seat a judge instead of letting Mitch McTurtle shit all over him