Category: Obama Administration

JFK Library Honoring President Obama With Profile in Courage Award

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum announced Barack Obama as the recipient of its Profile in Courage Award, which the 44th president will receive at a special ceremony at the library on May 7. The ceremony will be part of the celebrations for the centennial of President Kennedy’s birth on May 29.  The award will be presented by former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy and her son Jack Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s daughter and grandson.  President Obama will deliver a speech.  In a statement from the JFK Library, President Obama said:

“It’s been more than half a century since John F. Kennedy asked us to cast aside our narrow self-interest and take up the chase of a greater ambition: our collective capacity to do big things, especially when it’s hard,” said President Obama. “It was a call to citizenship as true as the words of our founding and a conviction that helped guide me to public service as a younger man – a belief in the possibilities of our democracy and the power of what we, the people, can do together.

“Even today, amidst the noisy and too often trivial pursuits of the politics of our time, it’s a summons to service that rings as loudly as ever.  Part of that is thanks to an extraordinary family that continues to light the fire of imagination and plant the seed of noble ambition in the minds of each new generation of Americans.  Like so many Americans, I am grateful for the Kennedy family’s legacy of service.  And I am deeply humbled to receive the Profile in Courage Award.”

According to the award’s website,

The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award was created in 1989 by members of President Kennedy’s family to honor President John F. Kennedy and to recognize and celebrate the quality of political courage that he admired most.

The award recognizes a public official (or officials) at the federal, state or local level whose actions demonstrate the qualities of politically courageous leadership in the spirit of Profiles in Courage, President Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer prize-winning book, which recounts the stories of eight U.S. Senators who risked their careers by embracing unpopular positions for the greater good.

President Obama has kept a low profile for the most part since leaving office in January, though he was recently sighted in New York City and signed a lucrative publishing deal for his and his wife’s memoirs. This presentation and speech will likely be one of President Obama’s first public appearances (if not THE first) of his post-presidency.

Obama Memoirs Bidding War Reaches Eight Figures

President and Mrs. Obama have about 60 million reasons to smile today, according to the Financial Times:

A blockbuster auction for the global rights to two books by Barack and Michelle Obama has reached more than $60m, according to people with knowledge of the sales process, a record sum for US presidential memoirs.

The Obamas are writing separate books but selling the rights jointly.

Several publishers including Penguin Random House, which published Mr Obama’s previous three books, and HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, have expressed interest in the most hotly anticipated publishing deal of the year.

Some perspective on how this compares to other presidential book deal:

The sum offered would eclipse other book deals secured by departing presidents. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, paid $15m for the rights to Bill Clinton’s 2004 memoirs My Life when he left the White House, while George W Bush made an estimated $10m from his book Decision Points, which was published by Crown.

UPDATE: According to the New York Times, Penguin Random House won the bidding war for the worldwide rights to both books. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but estimated to be worth “tens of millions.” There will be a nonprofit/charity component to the publication and the advances of both books.

The publisher plans to donate one million books in the Obama family’s name to First Book, a Penguin Random House nonprofit partner, and the Washington-based partner for the 2016 White House digital education initiative, Open eBooks. The Obamas also plan to donate a portion of their advances to charity, including the Obama Foundation.

John Kerry Hasn’t Ruled Out Another Presidential Run

Buried in the final two paragraphs of this New York Times article about John Kerry’s new gig at Yale University is this little gem:

While Yale’s president, Peter Salovey, emphasized that the Kerry Initiative is “not a political platform — it’s a teaching platform,” Mr. Kerry, who is also writing his memoirs, has not ruled out a run for president in 2020.

“I haven’t been thinking about it or talking about it,” he said. “I haven’t ruled anything in or anything out.”

Keep in mind, for a time leading up to the 2008 cycle, Kerry left the door open for another possible run. That door closed in no small part because of his poorly chosen comments about troops being stuck in Iraq if they didn’t get an education, the subsequent controversy which neutralized him as a surrogate during the closing days of the 2006 midterms.  In addition to that, he discovered in early 2007 that the money just wasn’t there for him, particularly in a field that included Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Things may be different in 2019, depending on the field of candidates, the state of the country, the results of the 2018 midterms, and public opinion of the Trump administration as it prepares to defend its record and run for reelection. If he has to compete against someone like Elizabeth Warren for the nomination, it could be very difficult. On the other hand, he would also have to stand out and consolidate support from the  establishment wing of the party, in a field that could include Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Andrew Cuomo or John Hickenlooper.

One thing Kerry would have going for him in his second run is his experience as Obama’s secretary of state, which may give him ammunition to criticize the Trump administration on its handling of foreign affairs.

Obamaworld Update: Book and Speech Negotiations, Citizen 44

According to The Hill, the Obamas have signed on with the Harry Walker Agency, which will represent them and arrange their post-White House speaking gigs.  The publication also reports that Washington D.C. lawyers Robert Barnett and Deneen Howell will represent them in negotiations for potential book deals.  There are no book releases or speaking engagements currently planned.

There’s also this bit of news from Politico Playbook:

Allison Zelman, a Clinton and Obama alum, and Paulette Aniskoff, a former director of the Office of Public Engagement at the Obama White House, have launched Citizen 44 LLC, which will “oversee President Obama’s engagement with political and progressive organizations and major supporters around the country to defend his legacy. They will also run his alumni network.” FROM ANITA BRECKENRIDGE, OBAMA’S CHIEF OF STAFF: “Paulette is someone who the President has relied on, and who countless allies and activists partnered closely with during our time in the White House. During her ten years on the campaign and inside the administration, she ran point on some of the most important fights we had and was a trusted senior strategist. We are thrilled to have her as a key member of the post presidency team.”

I don’t suppose anyone told them that Citizen 44 sounds very close to Citizenfour, the Oscar-winning documentary about Edward Snowden…

UPDATE: Reaction from Paulette Aniskoff

Biden Endorses Tom Perez for DNC Chair

Multiple news organizations are reporting that former vice president Joe Biden has endorsed Tom Perez for DNC chairman. The Perez campaign has not yet sent out an announcement or posted it on social media.  According to the Daily Beast, Perez was telling DNC members gathered in Houston last weekend that he had locked down Biden’s support:

Since as recently as last week, Perez had been telling DNC members that he had secured Biden’s endorsement. At the site of last weekend’s DNC forum in Houston, Texas, Perez was discussing the future of the Democratic Party with a private gathering of DNC members. According to two sources familiar with the exchanges, Perez excitedly said, in an apparent effort to drum up more support from DNC members, that the former vice president had his back. “And that’s why Joe Biden is coming out for me next week,” one DNC member recalled Perez saying.

UPDATE: Here’s the tweet from Tom Perez

Biden Foundation Launches

Twelve days after leaving office, former vice president Joe Biden announced the launch of the Biden Foundation. According to the foundation’s website, it will “build upon Vice President and Dr. Biden’s lifelong commitment to protect and advance the rights and opportunities of all people through educational programming and public policy analysis.”

The statement from Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden:

Wilmington, DE – My dad used to have an expression: “It’s a lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they’re about to do and thinks it still matters.” Jill and I have been very lucky these past decades.  We look forward to this new chapter where we will continue our work to ensure that everyone—no matter their income level, race, gender, age, or sexuality— is treated with dignity and gets a fair shot at achieving the American Dream. That’s why we are honored that a group of long-time friends and supporters have begun the work of founding the Biden Foundation to build on our lifelong commitment to issues that have always motivated us.

The foundation’s work will focus on foreign policy, cancer research, and ending violence against women, and other issues.

One interesting point on the Biden Foundation website: it will not accept donations from foreign citizens, organizations or countries. This is presumably a response to the fundraising practices of the Clinton Foundation which caused so much controversy during Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

A Preview of the Obama Post-Presidency

According to TMZ, the former president and First Lady are getting on a plane after tomorrow’s inauguration and heading straight to Palm Springs.

The Obamas will remain in Washington D.C. for two more years, until youngest daughter Sasha graduates from high school in 2019, according to the Chicago Tribune. In the meantime, they will be renting a home in the Kalorama neighborhood belonging to former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart.

President Obama will be leasing office space in the World Wildlife Fund headquarters near Dupont Circle and George Washington University.  He has hired Anita Decker Breckenridge, an aide since he was a state legislator contemplating a U.S. Senate run in 2003, to be his chief of staff. He will be involved in efforts to rebuild the Democratic Party, as well as the National Democratic Redistricting Committee led by his former attorney general Eric Holder. He will also begin fundraising for his foundation and presidential center, which is scheduled to open in Chicago in 2021.

As for the outgoing first lady, the Washington Post has a great story on her possible post-White House plans: after a break, she will hire a small staff and get an office space. Her team will be led by Melissa Winter, her longtime deputy chief of staff since 2007.

Both the President and the First Lady are expected to write their memoirs after leaving office. Literary agents and book publishers told the New York Times the Obamas’ potential book deals could range from $10 to 45 million. One key detail from the NYT: “Under a $1.9 million contract he signed in 2004 with Crown, Mr. Obama is obliged to produce another nonfiction book for the publishing house. But Mr. Barnett has said that book would not be a memoir, and no one interviewed for this story thought Mr. Obama would deliver that book to Crown under the 2004 terms.” This means that President Obama likely has more books in him (at least one more, per his 2004 contract) than just his memoirs.

The Obamas’ popularity abroad could make the foreign rights to any books they write even more valuable. They are both expected to make the rounds on the speaking circuit, which has proven to be a lucrative source of income for former presidents and first ladies.

The other thing to remember is that in addition to their popularity at home (President Obama is leaving office with a 60 percent approval rating, according to a recent CNN poll) and abroad, the Obamas are relatively young compared to other former presidents and first ladies: he’s 55, she’s 53. Considering that both Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush are in their early 90s, this means the Obamas will likely have a long post presidency ahead to continue to defend and shape his White House legacy, as well as other endeavors.

Democrats in the Twilight of the Obama Era

Check out this story from the Associated Press looking at the diverging political successes of President Obama and down ballot congressional and state Democrats. This is the dynamic of the past eight years that Democrats are trying to reverse, starting with the election of the next Democratic National Committee chair in February, followed by a series of congressional special elections and state legislative and gubernatorial races later on in 2017.

Obama Foundation Hires White House Political Director as CEO

The Obama Foundation announced the hiring of White House political director David Simas as Chief Executive Officer. According to the foundation’s press release, Simas will join the foundation’s leadership team and help work on the creation of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. According to Simas’s biography in the announcement:

A Taunton, Massachusetts native, David Simas received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Stonehill College and a doctor of law degree from Boston College Law School. In 2007, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. In 2009, Simas joined the Obama Administration as a Deputy Assistant to the President, working with senior advisors David Axelrod and David Plouffe. He then served as Director of Opinion Research for President Obama’s re-election. Simas most recently served as Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach. He lives in Washington with his wife Shauna and two daughters, Payton and Rowan.

Comments from Simas himself, via Twitter:

Obama Says He Will Help Democrats Rebuild After Leaving Office

This comment came up during President Obama’s press conference on Friday. From the White House transcript:

What I’ve said is, is that I can maybe give some counsel and advice to the Democratic Party.  And I think that that the thing we have to spend the most time on — because it’s the thing we have the most control over — is how do we make sure that we are showing up in places where I think Democratic policies are needed, where they are helping, where they are making a difference, but where people feel as if they’re not being heard and where Democrats are characterized as coastal, liberal, latte-sipping, politically-correct, out-of-touch folks.  We have to be in those communities.  And I’ve seen that when we are in those communities, it makes a difference.

That’s how I became President.  I became a U.S. senator not just because I had a strong base in Chicago, but because I was driving around downstate Illinois and going to fish frys and sitting in VFW halls and talking to farmers.  And I didn’t win every one of their votes, but they got a sense of what I was talking about, what I cared about, that I was for working people, that I was for the middle class, that the reason I was interested in strengthening unions, and raising the minimum wage, and rebuilding our infrastructure, and making sure that parents had decent childcare and family leave was because my own family’s history wasn’t that different from theirs, even if I looked a little bit different.  Same thing in Iowa.

And so the question is, how do we rebuild that party as a whole so that there’s not a county in any state — I don’t care how red — that we don’t have a presence and we’re not making the argument.  Because I think we have the better argument.  But that requires a lot of work.  It’s been something that I’ve been able to do successfully in my own campaigns.  It is not something I’ve been able to transfer to candidates in midterms and sort of build a sustaining organization around.  That’s something that I would have liked to have done more of, but it’s kind of hard to do when you’re also dealing with a whole bunch of issues here in the White House.

And that doesn’t mean, though, that it can’t be done.  And I think there are going to be a lot of talented folks out there, a lot of progressives who share my values who are going to be leading the charge in the years to come.

In recent history, the norm has been for the outgoing president to stay quiet (or at the very least, keep a low profile) after leaving office. In addition to the lingering effects of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton left office under a cloud after a controversial series of presidential pardons at the end of his presidency. George W. Bush’s poll numbers were in the low 30s by the time he left office due to a combination of the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, and the collapse of the housing market – all three of which happened during his second term. (Caveat: the Iraq war began in Bush’s first term, but the political and security situation on the ground started going south during his second term).

Obama is in a unique position in that he is in a much better situation than his predecessors. President Obama’s approval ratings are in the high 50s – he will leave office with Reagan-esque poll numbers. He is also popular and respected within the Democratic Party, somebody who can appeal to most of the factions vying for control and direction right now as he prepares to leave office four weeks from now. The fact that he was so successful in both his presidential runs means that he has created a model for others to follow – one that Hillary Clinton was not successful at replicating.

He will probably have some say in the form and shape the party take as the opposition for the next few years, though he will probably allow Democrats running for DNC chairman now and the primaries three years from now to let them sort things out for themselves.  He also has a vested interest in rebuilding the party, because Donald Trump and the congressional Republicans’ agenda will consist in large part on trying to undo or erase much of Obama’s legacy – Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, the Paris climate change agreement, etc. Republicans will complain that Obama should give Trump the same courtesy of silence that George W. Bush gave him, but that argument ignores the fact that Dick Cheney was one of his most blistering critics in the opposition.

Keep an eye out for Obama around sometime next spring, after he has presumably taken a long vacation and settled into life as a private citizen again.