Former president has given series of blistering speeches to help candidates in key races – and deployment has proved a hit with party’s progressive wing That could have been awkward. Barack Obama, campaigning for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, acknowledged that his fellow Democrat has criticised some aspects of the Obama presidency. “Yeah, Abdul didn’t agree with some things we wanted to do – that our administration was doing – when I was president,” he told a rally in Detroit. “You know who e…