The Atlantic

The Democratic Candidates Are Deeply Ambivalent About Obama

The candidates may praise the 44th president, but from health care to immigration, they have real policy differences with him.
Source: Alessandro Garofalo / Reuters

Did you know that Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president? In case anyone watching the Democratic debate somehow forgot that fact, Biden repeatedly invoked Obama, and has elsewhere taken to referring to the “Obama-Biden administration” and “Obama-Biden Democrats.” But during tonight’s Democratic debate in Detroit, the ambivalence about the 44th president lurking within his party broke through. Although Democrats still love Obama, they now question central parts of his legacy.

The clearest indication of this ambivalence came during an exchange

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