President Obama’s former head speechwriter said the president will become a big part of Hillary Clinton’s campaign “dream team” and that Republican Donald Trump is running a “moronic” campaign befitting a tyrant.
Jon Favreau, who was the president’s chief speechwriter from 2005 to 2013, said Mr. Obama’s rise in job-approval over 50 percent this year will help Mrs. Clinton in the general election by attracting the support of independents, young voters, women and Hispanics.
“I don’t want to overestimate the Obama effect,” Mr. Favreau said in a post on TheRinger.com. “No one can win this for Clinton but Clinton. But I suspect that the president will give this campaign all that he has and more — for Clinton, for his own legacy, and for the vision of America that he’s asked us to believe in.”
His assessment comes as Mr. Obama made his most forceful attacks yet on Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in a speech Wednesday in Indiana. The president said the Republican’s tax plan will hurt the middle class, and that his proposal to roll back Wall Street reforms is “crazy.”
In Mr. Favreau’s view, Mrs. Clinton will wrap up the Democratic nomination Tuesday in New Jersey, before polls close later that night in California. He said Mr. Obama will help her heal the rift from a bitter primary battle with Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, by using the example of his own protracted primary fight with Mrs. Clinton in 2008.
“He [the president] has an 82 percent approval rating among Sanders supporters, whom he’ll work to persuade as America’s most famous Clinton convert — someone who also waged a brutal primary against her, but eventually became a friend, partner, and champion,” Mr. Favreau said.
The Clinton Democratic “dream team” he envisions includes Bill Clinton (“a popular ex-president who can testify to her character”); Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (“a liberal icon”); Vice President Joseph R. Biden (“a beloved vice president with a working-class, tell-it-like-it-is, God-knows-what-he’ll-say kind of appeal”), and an “attack dog” running mate, whom he speculates could be drawn from a group including Mrs. Warren, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Labor Secretary Tom Perez, and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
It’ll come as no surprise that the president’s former top wordsmith has nothing but contempt for Mr. Trump, saying conservatives’ questions about Mr. Obama’s citizenship are “the original lie upon which the entire fraud that is the Trump candidacy was built.”
“The difference with Trump is that everything is about ’I’ — I’m the best, I’m rich, I’m right, I can fix it, I can win,” Mr. Favreau said. “It’s not just a maddeningly vague and moronic way to run for office, but a recipe for perpetual discontent, since even strong, brilliant leaders cannot bend the world to their will.”
He added, “It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how our democracy works. Because it’s not democracy. It’s what places ruled by demagogues and tyrants look like.”
Mr. Favreau said the president has been fighting for social justice for his whole career and will relish the opportunity to help defeat Mr. Trump.
“In a few months, my old boss will hit the trail for the last time as president,” he said. “Now, in the twilight of his presidency, he’ll have the chance to deliver his closing argument to the American people.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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