Democrats experience Obama nostalgia
They overrate him
The Democrats have lost two out of the three presidential races since Barack Obama’s last run. It’s natural, therefore, that they yearn for another Obama to be their standard bearer.
Natural, but not inevitable. Republicans lost two consecutive presidential races after George W. Bush's last run. Yet, the GOP did not yearn for another Bush in 2016, as Jeb Bush quickly found out.
Similarly, the Democrats lost two consecutive races after Bill Clinton’s last run, but did not turn to another Clinton, as Hillary found out in 2008. To be fair, though, Obama more closely resembled Bill Clinton in relevant respects than Hillary did.
In any case, the Democrats’ current yearning for Obama is unmistakable. Consider this piece by David Leonhardt of the New York Times. (Note that he uses “working class” and those who lack a four-year college degree interchangeably. That’s a bit sloppy, but I’ll go along with this convention for purposes of my post):
It remains Barack Obama’s most underrated political skill: his appeal to working-class voters, including those who are white.
Obama won most voters without a four-year college degree in his two presidential campaigns. Those majorities helped him win Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in both campaigns. He even won Indiana and North Carolina once.
He did so by both speaking to the economic frustration that resulted from years of slow-growing wages and signaling that he, like most Americans, was moderate on social issues. He made clear that he understood people’s anxiety about the speed of cultural change.
If Obama understood people’s anxiety about the speed of cultural change, he did so in a most unflattering and condescending light. In fact, he ridiculed that anxiety, saying:
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.