He returned to some of the Obama classics: kicking off with
“Are you fired up? Are you ready to go?” and working his way through to
“Don’t boo. Vote!” Then, to criticize ads by Northam’s opponent, Ed
Gillespie, as misleading, he used a phrase that’s only a favorite to
him, calling it “the okey doke.”
And the kicker: “The question now, at a time when our
politics just seems so divided, and so angry, and so nasty, is whether
we can recapture that spirit, whether we support and embrace somebody
who wants to bring people together,” Obama said. “Yes, we can.”
The “Yes, We Can” chants followed, as he must have known they would.
Over 30 minutes in, he was going full force, whipping into a
tangent here in the old capital of the Confederacy about being
Jefferson Davis’ eighth cousin, once removed — “I’ll bet he’s spinning
in his grave,” Obama said — and weighing in on the Confederate monument
debate by noting that while Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, he also wrote
the Declaration of Independence, of which Obama went on to recite the
first lines.
Though he’s appeared at two fundraising events in recent
months, Thursday was his first time back campaigning since a rally in
Philadelphia the night before last year’s presidential election — an
event that ultimately failed to pull Hillary Clinton over the edge in
Pennsylvania and beyond.
But to forlorn Democrats who’ve been wondering whether he’d
be there for them politically in a post-presidency that so far has been
consumed by setting up his foundation, vacationing, writing his book and
giving $400,000 paid speeches, his answer was yes — in rip-roaring
form, at least for one day.
In New Jersey, Obama railed against “the politics of fear,”
complaining that there are people engaging in a sadly archaic form of
politics that he said is “folks looking 50 years back.”
“This is the 21
st century, not the 19
th,” the former president said.
In Virginia, there was a more recent kind of nostalgia going on.
“Can you believe that a year ago this time, we had someone
in the White House who knew how to be president?” Richmond Mayor Levar
Stoney said, warming up the crowd before Northam and Obama appeared.
The Republicans in Washington, Northam insisted as he spoke
ahead of the president, remain consumed by him, too, focusing on tearing
apart Obamacare and more: “All they’re trying to do is take Barack
Obama’s name off of everything he did. We can’t let it happen.”
And as outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe praised Obama, he
pointed out an unmistakable element of the Republican campaign: Though
Trump has tweeted about Gillespie, and Vice President Mike Pence did a
campaign stop for him just last weekend, Trump himself has so far stayed
away from the trail. Gillespie has done his best to create distance of
his own.
“Meanwhile, on the other side, Ed Gillespie is treating the
president like a clinical disease,” McAuliffe said. “That’s not what we
do.”
And the old Obama gear was out in full force, supplemented
by new merchandise being sold by unofficial vendors lining the outside
of the Greater Richmond Convention Center: “Thank You — Miss You
Already” read one shirt under the blue-and-red Shepard Fairey painting
for the original “Hope” poster; “Y’All Miss Me Yet!!!” read another,
with a profile of Obama’s face; and one with a picture of a middle
finger sticking up and the word “Trump.”
That last time on the campaign trail in 2016, Obama was
warning America not to give Trump the nuclear codes and that he’d only
become more belligerent and destructive in office, rather than less. He
made the argument about democracy, about Trump’s being a threat to
everything America is about. And it didn’t work.
So as energized as some might feel by all the resistance talk and marches, Obama said, that wasn’t nearly enough.
“I don’t want to hear folks complaining and not doing
something about it,” Obama said, addressing the young people in the
convention center and beyond whom he said he’s been heartened to see out
on the streets. “I think it’s great that you hashtag and meme, but I
need you to vote.”
He finished with another old campaign trail classic — his
tell that he thinks he’s delivered a good speech and riled up the crowd:
smacking the podium twice with his left hand. Then he stood for the
embrace photos with the three Democrats on the statewide ticket, pulled
them in for a huddle, and walked back off the trail.
Katherine Landergan contributed to this report from New Jersey. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/19/obama-virginia-campaign-trail-ralph-northam-trump-243976
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