Former Obama Guru Axelrod Slams Biden over Pre-Debate Video, Quickly Tries To Take It Back
The Democratic civil war is just getting started.
It might seem like the presidential primary campaign has been going on forever, but with the top contenders taking the stage Thursday night, it was really just the preliminaries that have been getting out of the way.
And if a tweet Thursday from a former senior adviser to the most recent Democratic president is any indication, it’s going to get pretty ugly, pretty fast.
Former Vice President Joe Biden unwittingly kicked off the ugliness with a social media video that was a combination of self-serving political opportunism and self-abasing homage to former President Barack Obama.
It sounds more like a love-letter from a star-struck teenager than something from a grown man with his own lengthy — if not particularly admirable — career in public office.
It’s nauseating, frankly, and a better man would have been embarrassed by it.
But “a better man” simply isn’t Joe Biden.
One Democratic observer who knows a thing or two about the Obama operation was singularly unimpressed.
David Axelrod, the one-time political guru behind Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns and a previous critic of Biden’s performance as a candidate, mocked the video and its release as “about as subtle as a screen door on a submarine” in a tweet Thursday.
This pre-debate video tribute to @BarackObama from @JoeBiden is about as subtle as a screen door on a submarine.
Not only is he claiming co-authorship of Obama’s record. He’s sending message to the others:
“You want to attack Obama’s record? Make my day!” twitter.com/joebiden/statu…
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Axelrod might have been mixing his metaphors — a screen door on a submarine isn’t “subtle,” it’s useless. But the point was clearly not a compliment to the Biden operation.
Possibly regretting the tone — and maybe with an eye toward future employment with another Democratic presidential campaign — Axelrod sent out another tweet within the hour, ostensibly to clarify what he had just told the whole world.
