Michelle Obama For President in 2024?
Rumors are circulating again that former First Lady Michelle Obama may be planning a run for the White House possibly even to challenge sitting President Joe Biden. Cindy Adams, gossip columnist for The New York Post claimed once again this week that Mrs. Obama has been polling donors for a possible 2024 presidential bid over concerns that Biden could lose re-election to former President Donald Trump.
Adams wrote last month that the Obamas could sneak their way into the race.
Neither Michelle nor her husband former President Barack Obama has confirmed the rumors.
Michelle Obama Coming for Joe Biden?
With all due respect to the 93-year-old Adams, she may have broken a few stories in her lengthy career, but she is not a political pundit and certainly doesn't understand that a former president can't just "nudge" out the current Oval Office occupant.
The chances that Mrs. Obama could throw her hat into the ring at this late stage is also very unlikely – as the primary season is well underway, with Super Tuesday now less than a month out. With no campaign set up at this point, it would be impossible for any candidate to actually enter the race.
Even if Biden were to be sidelined at this point, it would only result in chaos that would almost certainly give the White House back to Trump.
America is still a democracy, and despite what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have believed in the run-up to her 2016 presidential bid, Americans don't want a candidate to be simply anointed. This is why there are debates among the parties' respective hopefuls before the primary season.
There have indeed been shakeups in the nearly 250-year history of presidential elections. So if Biden were to step out of the race, it would likely mean that the Democratic Party would have to wait until its late August convention in Chicago to determine who would be the party's nominee.
There have only been four contested conventions in presidential election history – including the 1968 Democratic Convention, which also happened to be in Chicago. It was only contested as President Lyndon Johnson announced he would drop out of the race, while Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated less than three months earlier. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey won the nomination on the first ballot but went on to lose the general election to Richard Nixon.
The most recent contested convention was in 1976, when Ronald Reagan almost defeated Gerald Ford, the incumbent president, for the nomination. Ford also went on to lose the general election, but Reagan made a comeback four years later.
Modern history reminds us clearly that a contested convention isn't good – even with an incumbent party. It creates chaos and often fails to deliver the momentum going into the general election.
Republican strategist Karl Rove responded to the rumors this week, telling Fox Business host Stuart Varney that it was "lunacy" to believe that Michelle Obama will replace Biden. Rove explained that he had been pressed on the issue four years ago, during then-President Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.
"They thought somehow or another, Biden was going to be pushed aside by Obama, Andrew Cuomo was going to be the Democratic candidate, and his running mate was going to be Michelle Obama," Rove added. "And, you know, I told the other Trump people, including the president himself, this is sheer utter lunacy, starting with the fact she hates politics, period. She loves the life she's got."
Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.