WASHINGTON – Previewing his midterm campaign message, former President Barack Obama kicked off a speech on Friday by directly speaking about President Donald Trump and telling college students they are coming of age during a time when the powerful and privileged are pushing back on America’s ideals.
“It did not start with Donald Trump,” Obama said at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “He is a symptom, not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years.”
Obama warned of the consequences of voter apathy.
“As a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president, I’m here to deliver a simple message and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it,” he said.
Obama said it’s not an exaggeration to say the midterm elections are the most important in his lifetime.
“Just a glance at recent headlines should tell you this moment really is different, the stakes really are higher, the consequences of any of us sitting on the sidelines are more dire,” he said.
Obama is speaking to a packed auditorium with an audience of about 1,100 students, faculty and community members.
After his remarks, Obama will be presented the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government in a ceremony at the university president’s residence on campus.
The speech comes ahead of his first midterm campaign events, beginning Saturday, in the political battleground of Orange County, Calif., where he will stump for several Democratic House candidates.
“Democrats need all hands on deck to take back the House, and we could not be more honored to have President Barack Obama’s inspirational voice and unifying message on the campaign trail, with his first stop in Southern California,” Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement.
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers said Friday that Obama’s campaign events will help Republicans.
“For three cycles President Obama fired up Republicans like nobody and I’m happy if he wants to do it again,” he said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington.
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Obama will head to Cleveland on Sept. 13 to campaign for Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Richard Cordray. He will also campaign this month in Illinois and Pennsylvania, and will headline a fundraiser for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in New York City.
Last month, Obama released a first round of endorsements – 81 candidates up and down the ballot – and there will be a second round of endorsements and additional campaign activity in advance of the midterms, according to his office.
Katie Hill, Obama’s communications director, said Obama hopes to use his standing across the country to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot.
Obama’s re-emergence comes as both parties are girding for a November election widely seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump. The outcome will decide control of Congress and three dozen gubernatorial contests.
Analysts say Obama’s post-presidential star status among Democrats will help drive turnout among African-American, Latino and young voters in key suburban House districts and cities. They also said he is better positioned than almost anyone else in the party to raise huge amounts of campaign cash.
Obama left office with a 57 percent approval rating, and like most presidents, his standing has only improved since departing the West Wing. More than six in 10 respondents to a Gallup poll released in February said they approved of the way Obama handled the job.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama, a co-chair of the group When We All Vote, is also getting involved. She is urging Americans to participate in a week of action, Sept. 22 through 29, to get people registered to vote.
“My father taught me that voting is a sacred responsibility, one that none of us can take for granted,” she tweeted last month. “And #WhenWeAllVote, we can make our voices heard.”
Former President Barack Obama is throwing his weight behind a long list of Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.
USA TODAY
Contributing: John Fritze
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