He thought this race was unlose-able but there’s really no such thing when your candidate is as weak as Hillary Clinton. She lost to an upstart Obama in 2008 when he was running as a longshot mainly to establish himself for a more serious future run, then nearly lost again to geriatric socialist Bernie Sanders this year when he was running merely to present a far-left alternate vision. As Ace put it a few months ago, beating Hillary Clinton is so easy you can do it accidentally. For the GOP, it’s like playing the Jets in the Super Bowl. No matter how far behind you fall, it’s still the Jets. You’re never really out of the game.

That analogy is unfair to Hillary, I guess. At least she made it to the Super Bowl.

In the past few days, Obama has issued stark warnings to Democrats that they could lose. According to several Obama aides and outside advisers, the change in tone is, in part, an inevitable product of the approaching election day. But it also is an acknowledgment of some of Clinton’s weaknesses. White House officials have privately fretted about some of Clinton’s recent missteps, said supporters of the president who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue frankly. Those mistakes and the narrowing polls have only intensified the president’s focus on the campaign, these officials said… The president had begun drafting his recent remarks before his trip to Asia this month. Even before that trip, he had grown concerned that the historic unpopularity of the two candidates could depress turnout, a development that has traditionally favored Republicans.

He’s got two options. He can sit back, do the odd campaign event here and there, and watch the Jets try to run out the clock without fumbling — guess how that’ll turn out — or he can suit up and run this offense himself. The first option all but guarantees that he’ll find himself on the dais on January 20th looking constipated as President Trump takes the oath of office, which, for a #NeverTrumper, is possibly the single best reason to strongly prefer Trump to Clinton. The second option all but guarantees that ObamaCare, executive amnesty, and the Iran deal stay put. You think this guy’s going to bet his legacy on Hillary Clinton finally figuring out in the next 50 days how to make people like her after 25 corrupt years in Washington? He wants the ball:

Barack Obama is about to launch a presidential campaign blitz for Hillary Clinton unprecedented in the modern era, pledging a dramatic commitment of time and resources to a contest he now unabashedly frames as a referendum on his personal and political prestige. Obama plans to devote at least one to two days each week in October to campaign for Clinton through rallies, targeted radio and television interviews, social media outreach and fundraising, said an adviser who requested anonymity. In addition, the president’s aides have told the Clinton campaign he would be willing to appear in television ads for her. His wife, Michelle, has already cut radio, online and TV ads for the Democratic nominee, another aide said, also requesting anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Michelle Obama is also planning an “active” schedule and Joe Biden is expected to focus on the sacred triad of Ohio, Florida, and his old home state of Pennsylvania. Bernie Sanders will also come under tremendous pressure to do more for Clinton, including TV ads. The strategy here is straightforward as can be: Democrats are terrified about the downturn in Clinton’s support among millennials, including/especially minority millennials, and they’re counting on Sanders and the Obamas to remedy that. Biden will be on the trail to try to cut Hillary’s losses among blue-collar whites, who overwhelmingly prefer Trump. The bet is that if Clinton can approach Obama’s 2012 performance among minorities and young adults and can lock down the college-educated whites who traditionally vote GOP but are chilly towards Trump, there’s simply no way he can win. There aren’t enough white working-class voters in the U.S. to overcome a Democratic advantage in the other key groups. Given how poorly Trump polls with millennials and black voters, you would think any Democratic nominee would be able to rally those groups without help. But then, you would also think that a candidate who’s spending 53 times more than her opponent on airtime in Florida would be doing better there than a dead heat. J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!

Here’s a sneak preview of the Obama offensive scheme over the next seven weeks. I’ll say this for O: He’s taking a gamble with his legacy here to the extent that the election becomes a choice between Trumpism and Obamaism. If it’s a choice between Trump and Clinton and she loses, that’s on her. She’s corrupt, she’s a bad campaigner, it’s no reflection on O. If the race is a choice between Trump and Obama and their very different visions for the country, and Trump ends up winning, that’s a repudiation of the incumbent. Hope he’s prepared.