Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 as by far the least qualified of the major candidates in the field, including his primary challenger Hillary Clinton, but his wife now bemoans Americans’ electing the less-qualified candidate in 2016 — who’s ended up, she says, acting like the irresponsible parent who lets his children (the American people) do the “fun” thing rather than the responsible thing.
The former first lady’s comments came during her appearance at the Simmons Leadership Conference in Boston on Thursday. Her husband’s administration, she told the audience, was like “having the ‘good parent’ at home — the responsible parent, the one who told you to eat your carrots and go to bed on time,” The Hill reports.
“And now we have the other parent,” she continued. “We thought it’d feel fun — maybe it feels fun for now because we can eat candy all day and stay up late and not follow the rules.”
The problem, she explained, is that (like in 2008) the American people made the unfortunate decision to elect the less-qualified candidate. While she wasn’t “perfect,” Hillary Clinton — who Democrats ditched in the 2008 primaries for a rookie senator with no true leadership background and not much of a lawmaking record — was clearly “the best-qualified candidate,” said Obama.
“She wasn’t perfect, but she was way more perfect than many of the alternatives,” said the former first lady. Though she was so utterly and completely qualified, voters weren’t willing to go to the polls for her, she said with regret. Next time, she said, “we’ve got to be willing” to go out and elect the qualified candidate. (Reminder: Trump will be the only candidate on the ballot who will have actually served as President of the United States; in other words, he’ll be the “most qualified” candidate.)
Obama also addressed all of those who might feel “disheartened that she and Oprah don’t want to run.” They should feel “more disheartened by the fact that Hillary Clinton, probably the most qualified person to ever seek the office of the presidency, lost,” she said, adding for emphasis, “She lost.”
Partial transcript via The Hill.