Republicans will face a 'very difficult situation' if Michelle Obama runs for president: GOP activist

President Joe Biden has said that if he continues to be “in good health,” he will seek reelection in 2024. Some pundits have speculated on the possibility of former First Lady Michelle Obama running for president if Biden doesn’t seek a second term two years from now, and according to Guardian reporter Martin Pengelly, Republican strategists are terrified of that possibility.

Right-wing GOP activist Monica Crowley, known for her commentary on Fox News, addressed the possibility of Obama running for president when she spoke on a panel at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida on Saturday, February 26. Crowley told attendees, “If (Democrats) were to run Michelle Obama, that would put us in a very difficult position because they’d reach for a candidate who is completely plausible, very popular, and immune to criticism. Also, when you think about her positioning, she (was a Democratic National Convention) keynote speaker in 2020, she wrote her autobiography (becoming, a bestseller) and did a 50-city tour.”

Crowley continued, “She has massive Netflix and Spotify deals, and she’s got a voting rights group alongside (Georgia gubernatorial candidate) Stacey Abrams.”

But Michelle Obama has said that she has no desire to run for president. At an event in Boston in 2018, the former first lady said, “The reason why I don’t want to run for president.… is that, first of all, you have to want the job…. I’ve never had the passion for politics. I just happened to be married to somebody who has the passion for politics, and he drug me kicking and screaming into the arena.”

Moreover, former President Barack Obama has said, “Michelle will not run for president. I can guarantee it.”

But some Republicans, Pengelly notes, “still appear to fear (Michelle) Obama could somehow be dragged into a race against Trump.”

One of them is Crowley. At CPAC 2022, Crowley told fellow attendees, “For all of these people who say, ‘Michelle Obama isn’t political.… they’re making too much money now,’ keep a very close eye on her because her trajectory is exactly what Barack Obama did before he ran for president and what Bill and Hillary Clinton both did. I think if she were to run, that would be a very difficult situation for us.”

Pengelly, however, disagrees that Michelle Obama has a similar “trajectory” to Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“A successful lawyer and popular first lady, she has never run for national office, let alone been a senator — Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton — governor, Bill Clinton, or secretary of state: Hillary Clinton again,” Pengelly observes. “She has, however, given well-received speeches at Democratic conventions — including a heartfelt expression of support for Biden, her husband’s vice president, and criticism of Trump, in 2020.”

In response to Pengelly’s reporting, former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann tweeted:

Here are some more reactions to Pengelly's reporting: