He's Back: Obama Slated To Headline Political Event In Nation's Capital This Week

It looks like former President Barack Obama has finally recharged the batteries enough. Ever since leaving office in January, it seems like the former commander-in-chief has been on an endless vacation - outside of a few high-priced speaking gigs, that is. While he claimed to be looking forward to his time out of the spotlight, the former president has done anything but shy away from it. Pics of Obama enjoying fun in the sun and laughs with wealthy and famous pals have been a regular occurrence on social media, but it looks like he’s going to stop yukking it up long enough to stick his head back into the political fray.

As the Daily Mail shares, Obama is slated to headline a big fundraiser in Washington DC for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee later this week. As former Attorney General Eric Holder explained earlier this year, redistricting is a pet project for both himself and Obama.

“He thinks, and I think, that this is something that threatens our democracy," Holder said during an interview with the New York Times. “We have a system now where the politicians are picking their voters, as opposed to voters making selections about who they want to represent them.”

Holder will be in attendance at the closed-door event at a private residence in the nation’s capital, as will House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). In essence, the group plans to address what they view as discrepancies due to gerrymandering on the current electorate.

“They'll look to down-ballot races in states where legislators draw the maps. They'll put money toward legal challenges. And they'll work to put ballot initiatives on the ballots in states where it's permitted,” the Mail explains. “A ballot initiative was used in California, for instance, to create a commission made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and four commissioners from neither major party to re-draw the districts In many states, whichever party has a majority in the state legislature holds the ball.”

Basically, Democrats are hoping to redraw some maps in hopes of stemming the tide of election losses. The midterm elections of 2018 are right around the corner, and the party is faced with the prospect of losing additional seats in the House and Senate. Of course, things could work out in the opposite fashion depending on how things shake out between now and then, but the party feels the deck needs to stacked in their favor to make some real headway.

While that’s one approach that can be taken, perhaps the Democratic Party would be best served by crafting a coherent message that actually resonates with voters. Being as anti-Trump as humanly possible is not a platform, nor is obstructing anything that doesn’t align completely with party preferences.

Quite frankly, the party spends way too much time on both social issues and deflecting blame for last year’s election debacle. That stance may play well in the big cities and inherently blue districts, but it will do little to sway voters to cross party lines.

Source: Daily Mail
Photo: YouTube