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- Former President Obama mocked GOP “birtherism” while boosting Mandela Barnes’ Wisconsin Senate bid.
- During a Friday rally, Obama mocked Republican marketing campaign makes an attempt to paint Barnes as “different.”
- “I mean, we’ve seen this. It sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it?” he stated, recalling his personal races.
Former President Barack Obama on Saturday poked on the “birther” assaults he faced all through his eight years within the White House as he campaigned for Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin’s high-stakes Senate race.
Obama — whose United States citizenship was repeatedly questioned by a slew of conservatives through the 2008 presidential marketing campaign and as he ran for reelection in 2012 — throughout a Milwaukee rally criticized tv commercials in opposition to Barnes that known as the candidate “a dangerous Democrat.”
“I know that there are some folks, probably maybe not in this auditorium, but elsewhere in Wisconsin who think just … because Mandela’s named Mandela, just because he’s a Democrat with a funny name, he must not be like you, he must not share your values,” Obama stated. “I mean, we’ve seen this. It sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it?”
“So Mandela, get ready to pick up that birth certificate. Get ready,” he mockingly added.
Barnes is seeking to oust two-term Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who was first elected within the conservative “Tea Party” wave within the first midterm election of Obama’s presidency, the place the GOP received again management of the House and erased a large Democratic edge within the Senate.
If elected, Barnes can be the primary Black United States senator to signify Wisconsin.
Before the 2012 presidential election, former President Donald Trump started floating the thought that Obama was not an American citizen, a difficulty he used to catapult himself into nationwide Republican politics, later profitable the 2016 presidential nomination after which the overall election.
—Acyn (@Acyn) October 29, 2022
While talking on the Democratic get-out-the-vote rally, Obama opined that the assaults in opposition to his citizenship do not examine to the raft of political conspiracy theories that have been espoused by Trump and a few conservatives in recent times.
“That’s the good old days. Remember when that was the craziest thing that people said?” Obama requested the gang. “Think about that. That wasn’t that long ago. Everybody’s going like, ‘Wow that’s some crazy stuff.’ Now, it doesn’t even make the top 10 list of crazy.”
Johnson is at present averaging a 3.4% lead over Barnes on FiveThirtyEight utilizing information from the latest polls.
Wisconsin is well-known for its razor-thin electoral contests; Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton within the 2016 presidential election by lower than one p.c, and President Joe Biden edged out Trump within the state in 2020 by an identical margin.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who’s up for reelection this fall in opposition to Republican businessman Tim Michels, defeated two-term GOP Gov. Scott Walker by 1.1 factors 4 years in the past.
However, Obama simply received the state in each 2008 and 2012.
