“On the Holmes Front,” with Frank Holmes
While Joe Biden is sheltering in his basement, he has lots of time to think about picking his vice president, and he’s already announced Michelle Obama’s at the top of his list. But the first lady’s closest advisor just gave him some devastating news: Not only will Michelle not be Biden’s running mate, but she may not even endorse him for president.
Biden has already promised to name a woman to his ticket, and he’s strongly hinted he would tap a woman of color.
He’s made no secret he has Mrs. Obama in mind.
“I’d take her in a heartbeat,” Biden told a voter at a South Carolina rally, “if I thought there was any chance.”
Michelle Obama has always said she wants no part of politics. “I’ll say it here directly: I have no intention of running for office, ever,” she wrote in her autobiography, Becoming.
Still, Democrats have speculated about a Biden-Obama ticket for months. Community organizer Al Sharpton even says he prays for it every day.
But Michelle Obama’s most intimate advisor and personal friend, Valerie Jarrett, threw cold water all over the idea earlier this week. She said there was no way Michelle would join Biden’s ticket.
But that’s not all.
Michelle Obama’s “aversion to politicking and office-seeking are so strong, Jarrett said, that she might not even formally endorse Biden,” Politico reported on Monday.
The Beltway website buried that bombshell 517 words into an essay pushing Obama for the country’s second most powerful job.
But it should send shockwaves through the Democratic Party. It’s a major indication that the Obamas don’t think Biden has a prayer of beating President Donald Trump.
Ordinarily, political gossip wouldn’t make much of an impact—but Jarrett is no ordinary presidential advisor.
The New York Times called her “The Ultimate Obama Insider.” NBC News dubbed Jarrett the “Obama whisperer.”
You don’t have to believe the legacy media. (In fact, you shouldn’t.) Listen to what they say about themselves.
Barack Obama said, “She’s family,” and Jarrett said that she and the ex-president “have a kind of mind-meld.”
They’ve been the closest threesome in politics since Jarrett gave Michelle Obama—then Michelle Robinson—her first job in Chicago politics.
Jarrett had dinner with the Obamas, where they bonded politically and personally.
By the third hour of their dinner, she promised to look out for their interests, no matter what.
“’I will protect you,’ I said to Michelle,” Jarrett writes in her memoirs, “Finding My Voice.” She went on to tell Michelle, “I will never ask you to do anything you’re uncomfortable doing and will stand in the way of anybody who does.”
When Obama became president, she was his closest advisor for eight years.
Jarrett’s so close to the first family that after he left office, she reportedly moved into the Obamas’ $5.3 million mansion. An Obama spokesperson denied that Jarrett lives there—but she’s regularly seen “visiting” at all hours of the day and night.
Jarrett’s status as the Obamas’ personal guardian never ended. Last year, she told NPR she’s been protecting the Obamas “for 28 years now.”
When she speaks, she speaks for them.
“Ms. Jarrett very rarely goes rogue. She very rarely does things that are not authorized or that the (former) president is not comfortable with,” Noam Scheiber, who wrote a major profile of Jarrett, told National Public Radio. “So if you are upset with Valerie Jarrett, you are probably upset with Barack Obama.”
If Valerie Jarrett says Michelle Obama won’t even endorse Biden, it’s the same as hearing it from Michelle herself.
That’s terrible news for Biden’s failing campaign.
It means the Obamas think Joe Biden is going to lose in November, and they don’t want their fingerprints on his corpse.
Obama has given his vice president as little encouragement as possible.
When Biden told his ex-boss he wanted to make a third run for president in 2020, Barack told him, “You don’t have to do this, Joe. You really don’t.”
The media immediately reported that damaging quotation. The New York Times reported the campaign-killing statement was leaked by “a source familiar with the conversations.”
President Obama sat on the sidelines during the Democratic primaries and didn’t make his own half-hearted endorsement until every other candidate had dropped out of the race.
And Michelle may not even do that much.
Consider that the Obamas’ vote of no confidence in Biden’s campaign.
Make no mistake, Barack Obama wants back in power. He just doesn’t think Biden can get him there.
The Obamas are politically cautious, not usually endorsing any person or ballot issue they don’t think is a sure winner.
As the unopposed nominee, Biden is further behind in the polls than Hillary Clinton was at this time in 2016—and she was in a life-and-death primary fight against Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders’ supporters may not show up for Biden in the general election. In battleground states, up to 60% of Sanders primary voters have said they won’t vote for Biden in the fall.
Biden has a major enthusiasm gap, and he’s won a smaller percentage of young voters than any recent successful Democratic candidate.
Joe Biden, and his candidacy, looks like a dead man walking.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”