Obama admits economic liabilities
By Stephen Collinson (AFP)
5 hours ago
Obama’s approval rating on the struggling economy has dipped to 26 percent in a Gallup poll as fears grow of a slump into a second recession and global stock markets plunge, clouding his 2012 reelection prospects.
“You’ve got an unemployment rate that is still too high, an economy that’s not growing fast enough,” Obama said in an interview with CBS News taped during his economic-themed bus tour of three states last week.
“For me to argue, ‘look, we’ve actually made the right decisions, things would have been much worse had we not made those decisions,’ that’s not that satisfying if you don’t have a job right now,” he said.
“And I understand that and I expect to be judged a year from now on whether or not things have continued to get better.”
TAPPER: Lastly, David, I know that you’re well aware that you have a big task ahead of you when it comes to motivating Obama supporters from 2008 and potentially future Obama supporters, rallying the base. Progressive filmmaker Michael Moore had this question that he wanted me to ask you. Quote, “Are you aware of how profoundly disappointed so many of the president’s supporters are? Do you realize that each time the president moves to the right, he picks up no votes and loses many? Or do you cynically believe that because these people have nowhere else to go, they’ll end up voting for Obama?”
How do you respond to liberals like Michael Moore, who want to vote for the president, but are just profoundly disappointed? How do you convince them to turn out in November 2012?
AXELROD: Well, first of all, no one is cynically moving one way or the other. The president is not moving left or right; he’s interested in moving the country forward.
And we’ve got a very, very sharp debate here. And the question is, are we going to take steps in the short run to help stimulate this economy, to help create jobs, to help create growth? And are we going to take the steps in the long run that will protect the investments that can grow our economy and, most importantly, Jake, can create good middle-class jobs in the future on which people can raise their families?
That’s what education is about. That’s what research and development to create new technologies and advance manufacturing is about. That’s what the infrastructure — that’s what roads and bridges and repairs that put people to work now, but also create the opportunity to move — to move our goods across this country.
And all of these things are part and parcel of a strategy that is completely opposed by the other side, who want to go back to the same trickle-down, deregulation. You know, the same mantra we heard in the last decade that led up to this problem we’re hearing again. I think that this is such a profound choice that the president’s supporters and independent voters and people across this country will rally, because the future will be determined by this debate and the path we take.
If you want a Democrat in the White House in 2013, you’d better be working like hell to make sure Obama pulls an LBJ.
He and his team don’t care about winning.
Electoral victory my ass.
(h/t Phoebe Loosinhouse)
3 comments
Author
Interesting post. He has a done a right. Keep updating.
Hardwood Flooring
That right-wing liar doesn’t care what the public thinks. He only cares what his paymasters on Wall Street think. He will never be moved to do the right thing. The crimes he’s committed in continuing the criminal policies of the Bush-Cheney regime, including torture and the launching of yet another illegal war, are worthy of impeachment and life in prison without the possibility of parole – at least. Stop believing that you can do anything to make Obama the right-wing extremist do anything even remotely liberal about anything. You can’t. The only thing you can do is to stop voting for right-wingers and start voting for left-wingers – chances of winning be damned.
If you want REAL change, you have to vote for REAL Progressives. Vote for Ralph Nader. Vote for Cynthia McKinney. Vote for Socialists, Progressives, Greens, Working Families, and so on. THEY are the true representatives of the public interest, the only ones inclined to use power to improve the lives of poor and middle class citizens. Axelrod can lie all he wants and claim his boss – who just moved to CUT Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Education, and who has NO jobs program at all – is somehow doing things he has never deigned to do. But the truth we all know is that Obama has no care for what the public is suffering, and he will not stop forcing his extreme right-wing policies down all our throats unless we stop him.