Michelle Obama, Clintons fly without Barack to Rosalynn Carter funeral
WASHINGTON — Former first lady Michelle Obama joined former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Biden aboard Air Force One on Tuesday to travel to the funeral of former first lady Rosalynn Carter in Atlanta.
Michelle Obama, 59, traveled without her husband and Biden’s ex-boss, former President Barack Obama, amid renewed speculation that she could follow in Hillary Clinton’s footsteps and seek the nation’s top job for herself.
The 81-year-old Biden faces dismal poll numbers ahead of next year’s expected rematch against former President Donald Trump, who leads in national and swing-state polls despite four pending criminal trials.
“If Michelle announced, the election would go immediately from a hotly contested footrace to a landslide,” a Democratic source told RadarOnline.com in September.
Another Democrat told the outlet: “Democrats say somebody has to stop Trump and Barack knows Michelle is the best person to do it! Party heavyweights are secretly testing the waters for support.”
A Barack Obama rep declined to comment on his whereabouts Tuesday. Former first ladies Laura Bush and Melania Trump also attended the funeral without their husbands.
Michelle Obama, who served as first lady for eight years, has repeatedly denied any interest in electoral politics — even though she and Barack, 62, still live about two miles from the White House in DC.
“No. I’m not going to run,” she told the BBC last November.
However, some Democrats have since expressed panic at Biden’s polling woes — with Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) launching a long-shot primary challenge to the president, saying he fears Biden cannot win another four years in the White House.
Former chief Obama strategist David Axelrod has pointed to Biden’s age in recent media interviews, saying this month on CNN that “in front of the camera, what he’s projecting is causing people concerns, and that is worrisome.”
“He thinks he can cheat nature here and it’s really risky,” Axelrod told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd Nov. 18, putting Biden’s chances of winning re-election at “a 50-50 shot … but no better than that, maybe a little worse.”
The RealClearPolitics average of recent national polls has Biden at 44.8%, behind Trump at 47.4%. A Times/Siena College poll of seven swing states this month showed Trump winning in six of them.
Polling shows that the economy is voters’ top issue and also that there is much greater concern about Biden’s age than about Trump’s.
Michelle Obama has stoked speculation about a political career with passionate speeches — with her 2020 endorsement of Biden at the virtual Democratic convention widely considered one of the strongest moments of the event.
“If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can — and they will if we don’t make a change in this election,” the former first lady said, wearing a gold “VOTE” necklace.
“If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”
Biden aides have insisted that he will yet again prove his critics wrong and win another term — pointing to his resounding comeback in the 2020 Democratic primary after crushing losses in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
“I can look back and see where … President Obama was a year out of his election, where President Clinton was a year out ahead of his election, and it didn’t look like they were going to win,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre contended at a briefing last week.
“And so, it is not unusual. You’re talking about dismal polling; it is not unusual for a president to be where they are ahead of that.”
Rosalynn Carter died Nov. 19 at age 96. Her spouse of 77 years, former President Jimmy Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981, turned 99 on Oct. 1, months after entering hospice care.
