Former President Barack Obama recorded a robocall to remind more than 200,000 Democratic households in New Jersey to get to the polls. But Obama didn’t mention the most vulnerable candidate on the ballot. He wouldn’t say the name of Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.

“This is one of the most important elections of our lifetime,” Obama says on the recording before Gov. Phil Murphy, D-N.J., takes over to serve up more boilerplate.

Though meager, Menendez is lucky even to get those bare bones. The former president and the indicted senator are not on good terms. It’s not just that the Obama Department of Justice slapped the senator with federal corruption charges. More acrimony came from Menendez leading an all-out revolt against the Iran nuclear deal as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

After accusing Obama of taking talking points “straight out of Tehran” and partnering with former Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., to impose new sanctions on Iran, Menendez told the New York Times, “I don't get calls from the White House” anymore. All of this made Menendez what CNN would describe as “the White House’s least favorite Dem.”

And that assessment makes sense. It is hard to foster a relationship with the president while battling corruption charges brought by his DOJ and simultaneously trying to torpedo his marquee foreign policy initiative.

What makes less sense is why Obama would, albeit half-heartedly, launch a rescue mission on behalf of a corrupt politician he doesn’t even like personally. But Obama knows Menendez is in some trouble. Some of the recent polling has Republican challenger Bob Hugin nipping at his heels in a state that Democrats should easily be winning. A loss would be disastrous for Democrats.

So in more uplifting and less specific terms, it seems Obama is echoing the editorial board of the left-leaning Star-Ledger. He is telling New Jersey “to choke it down, vote for Menendez.” Otherwise, Obama would have kept his voice off the air.