Standing before a sea of campaign signs that read “Stronger Together,” President Obama joined Hillary Clinton at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina Tuesday afternoon, his first appearance campaigning for his former secretary of state. Obama’s 40-minute address also marked his first in-person foray into a campaign that will determine his replacement in the White House.
“I’m here today because I believe in Hillary Clinton and I want you to help elect her to become the next president of the United States,” Obama told the crowd. Punctuated at times by chants of “Hillary! Hillary!” and “I’m with Her,” his remarks echoed Clinton’s own stump nearly note for note.
Obama also made passing reference to the historical nature of Clinton’s candidacy as the first female presidential nominee of a major party in U.S. history. He noted that while the 2008 Democratic primary, in which he defeated Clinton, had been tough on both of them, “She was like Ginger Rogers: She had to do it backwards and in heels.”
Clinton’s glee was apparent throughout Obama’s remarks. She may have hoped that the president’s star power would be enough to help shift the conversation away from the announcement by FBI Director James Comey Thursday morning that called Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as Obama’s secretary of state, while insufficient to warrant criminal charges, “extremely careless.”
Though absent in body, Obama’s speech also summoned the specters of Donald Trump and the president’s Republican opposition in Congress.
“Everybody can tweet, but nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until you’ve sat behind the desk,” Obama said, clearly referencing Trump without using his name.
In addition to critiquing their refusal to hold hearings on the the president’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, Obama also poked fun at sitting Republican legislators’ verbal contortions on the question of supporting Trump as their party’s presumptive nominee. “Even the Republicans on the other side don’t know what the other guy’s talking about,” he joked. “You ask them, they’re like ‘I don’t know’ and then they kind of duck the other way.”
“We’re not going to build walls around America,” Obama also said Tuesday in a clear reference to Trump’s most notorious policy proposal.
News of Obama’s appearance alongside Clinton caused consternation in Republican quarters, with Donald Trump calling the taxpayer-funded use of Air Force One “a total disgrace” in a tweet this morning. The campaign also took some heat for using the presidential seal, which Clinton also stood in front of during her own remarks.
As Politico reported last week, the Clinton campaign’s choice to debut Obama as its latest surrogate in North Carolina was a canny strategic reshuffle, an opportunity to deploy the president early in an emerging swing state that favored Mitt Romney in 2012 and Obama in 2008. RealClearPolitics’ 2016 polling average for North Carolina currently has Clinton edging out Trump by just 0.7 percentage points.
And as far as administration top brass goes, Obama is just the tip of the iceberg. As CNN reported today, Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to stump alongside Clinton in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania later this week.
But in the end, the crowd spoke for itself. “Thanks Obama,” a group of rallygoers yelled during a lull in his speech, a reference to a sarcastic meme the president has himself good-naturedly indulged in the past.
“You’re welcome,” the president replied.
