There is no such thing as a "normal" president--there have only been 45 people in history to have held the job and "normal" people don't rise to that level of political power. 

But some presidents are more normal than others. You have the machine politicians like Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, for instance. You have the dynasty presidents--the Roosevelts and Bushes--and you have the scrappers who are smart enough to build machines that endure, like the Clintons. You could slice and dice the categories all you want, but it's hard to put either Barack Obama or Donald Trump into any category. They are sui generis, each in his way. Their success was built on personal magnetism, which is irreproducible. 

That's why Obama's political success has never translated to anybody else, even though a mystique was built up around his tech-savvy team. 

Obama's team was never good for the Democrats. Recall how the Democratic Party was devastated at all levels below the president during his term, and the Democrats have lost two out of the last three elections to Donald Trump, and the Biden victory--whether legitimate or not--didn't see the country flock to basement Joe Biden. It was driven by hundreds of millions in dark money funding the rewriting of election rules--often illegally--and a massive conspiracy to "save" the 2020 election. 

The secret history of the shadow campaign that saved the 2020 electionhttps://t.co/G82mFbIeGA

— TIME (@TIME) February 6, 2021

Democrats, apparently, are beginning to notice that the Obama team were not geniuses who took a rough-around-the-edges political neophyte and turned him into a president, but a bunch of smart hacks who are better at promoting themselves than any candidate. 

NBC has a deeply reported story on how Democrats are turning on the Obama crowd, and it is worth taking a look at it. 

MSNBC - 5/28/2025 - Obama world loses its shine in a changing hurting Democratic party pic.twitter.com/0miwQAiybV

— CaseStudyQB (@CaseStudyQB) May 28, 2025

To be fair, the reputation of political consultants is largely driven by their proximity to successful politicians. Any win reflects on them, and any loss does as well, regardless of how little or much they had to do with the results. But if you have a reputation for making magic, it's important to choose wisely who you work for. 

After Kamala Harris entered the presidential race last year, she reached out to Barack Obama campaign alum Jim Messina to help lead her White House bid.

But when Messina shared news of the vice president’s offer with a friend, he received a stern warning.  

“I said ‘Jim, if you get involved in this, it’ll be political suicide,’” Democratic megadonor John Morgan, a longtime Harris critic, recalled of his conversation with Messina, who had served in Obama’s White House and managed his successful 2012 re-election campaign. “You’re going to be a loser. And your whole shine is you’re undefeated.” 

Messina declined the job. And after Harris’ loss to Donald Trump, it may not have been a bad move. 

David Plouffe, long hailed as the brilliant architect of Obama’s 2008 victory, served in a key role in Harris’ campaign and is now among those tagged with a devastating defeat.

“The shine’s off Plouffe now. He was the golden boy,” Morgan said. “Now he’s just an old broken-down boy, who lost. Big.” 

It's true that Kamala's campaign, especially in the last 6 weeks, was execrable, and Plouffe has to share the blame. But even the best political mind could not have carried Kamala Harris over the finish line because she has negative charisma and a talent for making poor choices. 

More Democrats are openly criticizing Obama strategists and consultants, who were long treated as the high priests of their party’s politics. Democratic National Committee officials at a news event last month blamed Obama’s lack of investment in state parties over his two terms for setting back local organizing, with the party still feeling the effects. The so-called Obama coalition of voters — less politically engaged voters, younger voters and voters of color — is no more. In 2024, each of those groups shifted toward Trump in high numbers.

Going forward, it could mark a clean slate for a party whose course for nearly two decades cascaded from decisions Obama had made. It was Obama who chose Biden as his vice president, offering him the elevated perch that set up his 2020 election and his aborted 2024 re-election. Obama selected Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state, then anointed her for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 race against Trump. The operatives Obama and his top aides empowered have carved out leading, decision-making roles at the top of the Democratic Party since then.

Relying on Obama's advisors in either policymaking or political roles was always a dumb idea. Obama was successful as a politician--or should I say successful at creating an attractive brand--but he never was good for Democrats. His policies were disastrous, Obamacare crippled his party for three successive elections, and the choice of Hillary Clinton as his successor didn't work out so well. 

And, even though Biden squeaked by in 2020 by hook or by crook, that choice turned out to be a disaster as well. Look at what Biden and the Obama team around him did to both the country and the Democratic Party. Democrats are less popular than Herpes. 

In 2024, Biden-Harris campaign chief Jen O’Malley Dillon tapped fellow Obama alumni for major roles. For example, Stephanie Cutter, managing partner of O’Malley Dillon’s old firm, Precision Strategies, was picked to help run the Democratic convention program and prep Harris for media interviews. 270 Strategies founding partner Mitch Stewart, who managed battleground states for Obama, was brought on to oversee a similar program for Biden. Rufus Gifford, the big-donor wrangler for Obama, acted as director of fundraising for the Biden campaign. The list goes on.

Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist with experience on past presidential campaigns, said it’s time for the party to take a hard look at the same set of operatives, including Obama campaign alums, who have been running national Democratic campaigns. 

“I’m sorry — I don’t want a surgeon who keeps killing patients,” he said.

Some victories, he noted, are a reflection of the skills of the candidate, rather than the operatives around them.

“It’s pretty easy to win with a guy like Obama,” Kofinis said, adding that Democrats tend to put too much emphasis on experience when they hire operatives, rather than “whether they’re any good” at their jobs.

Consultants of either party think first of themselves--this is their business--and part of their job is to create a mystique that they have a special sauce that will elevate the appeal of their campaign. Great consultants can, in fact, bring real value to a campaign to keep it on track and running smoothly, but most of the time they are cooking up ideas like this:

Democrats are spending $20 million studying how to talk to men, like a National Geographic journalist visiting animals in their native habitat. They just can't figure out why the working-class voter has abandoned the party that hates them. Oh, and the SPLC finally put TPUSA on… pic.twitter.com/SmVuyFgL8G

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 28, 2025

It's like USAID--we have this great thing, and if you give us money, great things will happen. The great thing is that money is going into the pockets of insiders. 

Democrats are smart to dump the Obama folks, but it is difficult to believe that what comes next won't be worse. The party has moved so far to the left, and relying on "grassroots" activists to power the party won't turn out well for them. Rainbow-haired gender-nonspecific leather bondage-wearing furries knocking on your door will hardly send ordinary Americans flocking back to the party. 

The Obama consultants at least looked and spoke the language of big-money people, which helps. What will the next crew look like, especially if AOC or someone similar is the nominee?