WASHINGTON _ As the presidential campaign heads into its final month, President Obama will be on the trail in behalf of his first-term secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. But in a real sense he also will be stumping for his own legacy.
A political cliche holds that presidential campaigns are, or should be, about the future. But Obama's nearly eight years in the White House in a significant way provide a framework for Clinton's aspirations, she having been a principal in carrying out his foreign policy agenda.
On the domestic side as well, she has been a consistent supporter, having embraced his controversial Affordable Care Act, popularly and often unpopularly called Obamacare, a forerunner of which she was a principal if failed architect.
In what is repeatedly peddled by the Republicans as "a change election" in which angry voters are demanding a new direction under outsider Donald Trump, the implication is that Obama has been a loser and that a Hillary Clinton presidency would bring more of the same.
Obama's nearly two terms in power, however, saw the country climb out of the Great Recession of President George W. Bush's last White House years. Also, American unemployment has been halved to 5 per cent from its peak in 2010.
Despite the unrelenting GOP and Trump allegations that the country is going to hell in a hand basket, Obama's public approval rating has climbed to 50.9 percent, the highest point of his second term and a standing that should enhance his positive contribution to the Clinton campaign. Obama's campaign skills, honed in his election and re-election, should prove to be a major asset to Clinton, particularly in rallying the African-American vote in many Democratic urban strongholds.
The Obama record in foreign policy, however, marked by his stalled efforts to extricate the United States from two foreign wars, clearly will limit his value as a campaign surrogate for her. But Trump's declarations that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader than our president has not sat well, even with some Republicans.
Obama's condescending observation during his 2008 Democratic nomination contest against Hillary Clinton _ that she was "likeable enough" _ has become a standard Republican jibe at both of them. But Obama has long since rallied to her as a valued cabinet member and champion of women's rights, particularly in the context of Trump's repeated slanders of females of all stripes. First lady Michelle Obama has gone out of her way to stump for Clinton.
A prime objective of the president and also of Vice President Joe Biden now is to bestir the army of Obama voters that brought both of them two terms of national leadership, no doubt considerably inspired by the historic goal of electing the first African-American president.
The desire to elect the first woman president similarly helped Hillary Clinton gain her party's nomination, although that historic prospect has not aroused the electorate as much as Obama's pioneer campaign did in breaking the racial barrier.
The deep animosity toward Clinton apparent in numerous public-opinion polls has been startling compared to the voter embrace of Obama eight years ago. Perhaps it's a reflection of the fact that he was a new face on the national political scene then. By contrast, Clinton has been on center stage in one role or another for nearly a quarter of a century, as first lady, U.S. senator, secretary of state and twice as a presidential candidate.
In any event, Barack Obama retains much of the charisma as a dynamic speaker that first brought him to the presidency, to the point that he may well match or even outdo former President Bill Clinton as a Hillary surrogate in the final campaign weeks.
The potential first gentleman last week got himself into a bit of political hot water with some critical words on Obamacare's shortcomings, obliging his wife to declare she recognized there were areas requiring improvement. But it's probably easier for her to take her sometimes erratic hubby to the woodshed than to chide the current president of the United States about anything he says.
