Any speculation as what our president will do after his term is up? I went to a large family gathering over the weekend, about equally split between conservatives and liberals. The one thing most seemed to agree on was they felt President Obama would not just go quietly off into the sunset.
Being president of the United States is a hard act to follow without taking a major step down in status. Some of my more liberal nephews suggested he might become more active in African politics and social issues. Any quesses or predictions here?
He’ll advise Hillary as she requests during her two terms. Write a book, oversee his library construction, take bowling lessons, get into ESPN’s fantasy basketball. He’ll find a cause to champion and have a foundation that supports it. Then have some fun with the grandchildren when they arrive.
This. And it’ll be much larger scale than Jimmy Carter and Habitat for Humanity, or Bush and Clinton with disaster relief. I don’t think he’ll team up with the Gates Foundation, since they already have plenty of money and attention, but he’ll do something similar (i.e. attract major philanthropic partners to effect enormously large-scale change).
Pretty much what everyone has written so far. He’ll do the standard ex-president stuff. Go on speaking tours, write books and work on his library. He will almost certainly be more visible (and popular) than Bush is/was, but he will fade a bit into the background. Hopefully he will take a year or two off to relax and enjoy the wife and kids.
And he will do stuff with the other ex-Presidents during moments of national or world crisis, adding his own presence and weight to the others. Like them or hate them, our ex-Presidents are more often an asset to the country after their terms are up than not, especially in times of crisis. IMHO anyway.
Maybe become the motivational speaker of former presidents? I could see that.
Is there anything to stop him from returning to the senate? Or having a powerful position in the next Democratic White House?
Or, maybe just help keep the political dialogue focused on real issues. I’d like to hear what he has to say, when not shackled by publicists and strategists, it could prove interesting, I think.
Nothing constitutional prevents either of those, but they’re both pretty unlikely. The only real political avenue left would be to follow Taft’s lead, and get onto the Supreme Court. There’d have to be a very Democratic-heavy Senate to do so, though - I can only imagine the outcry from the right at that nomination.
Given the recent revelations about the monitoring of US citizens, I expect that even many Democrats would balk at putting Obama on the Supreme Court. His appointment would be DOA. No, he’ll be a standard ex-president who pops up in times of polical crisis, or when another ex-president dies, and then fades back into the woodwork after.
You forget that he’s a Democrat. And that the majority of Congressional Democrats have fallen right into line, picking up their torches and pickforks to hunt down Snowden and any other Vile, Treasonous Traitors who might oppose unfettered surveillance so long as it’s carried out by a Democratic administration. No, he’d be fine w/ Democrats on the SCOTUS so long as he didn’t suddenly decide that blastocysts had the full suite of human rights. But I don’t see it happening; the Republican outcry would be insurmountable unless the Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority–and even then, the fallout on other issues would probably be more than it would be worth.
Seriously, he’ll be an exceptionally youthful ex-President, and will easily have another full career taking on an intractable problem, like making sure everyone on the planet has access to fresh water.
I have been predicting for some time that President Obama will return to the Senate after his presidency (maybe with a gap until the appropriate Senate seat opens up). I don’t think he will have any trouble getting elected in Illinois, and I can’t see him running a foundation or becoming involved in non-political charitable causes as a primary job. I know that this is not the historical norm, but nothing about Obama’s candidacy or election followed historical patterns. I think we may ultimately look back on Obama as a longtime Senator who took a brief break to serve as President.
Considering how many government officials are lawyers, I was wondering: how common is it to go back to practicing actual law, either civil or criminal, after their runs in government are up?