Obama: This doesn't work, I lose

FT. MYERS, Fla. – Three weeks after being sworn in, President Barack Obama acknowledged in plain terms Tuesday that his prospects for winning a second term may depend on the whether he can revive the nation’s plummeting economy.

“I’m not going to make any excuses,” Obama said at a town hall meeting here, in perhaps the most pivotal political state in America. “If stuff hasn’t worked, if people don’t feel like I’ve led the country in the right direction then you’ll have a new president.”

Despite his frank admission, Obama used the question-and-answer session, his second in two days, to brace Americans for a long recovery, frequently going off script at the start of what is sure to be a long campaign of expectation-setting.

“But I do think the American people understand that these are some, really big tough problems and it’s going to take some time for us to get ourselves out,” he said, after conceding his political fate was on the line. “I have great faith in the American people and their faith and wisdom.”

Obama’s appearance on Florida’s Gulf Coast came as the Senate approved the $838 billion stimulus package. Obama announced the measure had passed, repeating “that’s good news” four times consecutively, and prompted standing applause from a friendly audience in the hard-hit city, which suffered one of the nation’s worst foreclosure rates last year.

Speaking before an animated crowd of about 1,500 that greeted him with his “Yes We Can” campaign chant, Obama won himself perhaps more political leeway than he’ll ultimately enjoy.

“Americans I’ve met understand that even with this plan our economy will likely be measured in years, not weeks or months,” he assured.

At this, somebody in the crowd yelled “eight’ and the audience burst out in cheers in anticipation of the new president serving two full terms.

Obama, striding across a stage behind twin signs reading “Making America Work,” sought to buy himself some time by lavishing praise on the citizenry.

“You’ve got common sense, you understand that it took us a long time to get into this fix, we’re not going to get out of it over night,” he said. “But what you don’t have patience for is just listening to a bunch of bickering in Washington with nothing getting done.”

To isolate the congressional Republicans who have almost unanimously opposed his stimulus package so far, Obama held up his introducer at the town hall: Florida’s Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.

Crist did his part, urging passage of the stimulus package and, as is his signature, touting the merit of doing so without regard to party.

“This issue of helping our country is about helping our country,” said Crist, who ditched a meeting of former Florida governors in Tallahassee to appear with the president. “This is not about partisan politics. This is about rising above that, helping America and reigniting our economy.”

And Obama returned the favor.

“The thing about governors is they understand our economic crisis in a way that maybe sometimes folks a little more removed don't understand. They're on the front lines dealing with the economy every single day,” the president said.

“Governor Crist shares my conviction that creating jobs and turning this economy around is a mission that transcends party. And when the town is burning, you don't check party labels. Everybody needs to grab a hose, and that's what Charlie Crist is doing right here today.”

Two up-and-coming members of Congress from Florida, who flew on Air Force One with Obama, were optimistic in brief interviews after the town hall that there would be an evident economic recovery heading into next year’s mid-term elections.

But they acknowledged, like Obama, that as the majority party they would be judged on their results.

“I think that we will make slow but steady progress,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and vice-chair of the Democrat’s House campaign committee. “It will be measurable. Our first test will be the 2010 elections and when our members sand for re-election. We’re going to see in those results a reflection about how people feel about the job we’re doing.”

Still, she pointed to polling which she said underlines Obama’s case that Americans “realize this is going to take a while.”

“Yes, we are trying to make people understand that there is no magic pill that’s going to transform things tomorrow.”

Rep. Kendrick Meek, who has already announced his intention to run for Florida’s open Senate seat next year, said Obama is merely speaking the truth.

“It is going to take time,” Meek said. “We’re fighting and working our way out of this mess right now.”

But when money starts flowing to state and local projects this year and people start taking advantage of tax incentives he promised “you’ll see some progress.”

source

do you think its smart to say this...? what if the doesn't improve?

I don't believe we've ever had a President more firmly grounded in the real world.

are, and how difficult it will be getting to where we need to be.


:hi:

I agree Skidmore!

... he's certain that it WILL work. Otherwise he'd hope no one would notice lol.

Ever remember Bush saying, "If I'm wrong about Iraq, the whole country will go Democrat next time." Noop.

... then it's a mindscrew .... if the notion is out there that if it goes wrong he'll be defeated, and it DOES succeed .... then it plants the seed in the minds of voters that he deserves a second term.

The man doesn't take a breath without it being a calculated gesture. He's just that good.

we need him even if the economy doesn't improve.

I hope it improves in time for the 2010 elections. I don't want the Republicans in the house to get any impression that people want republican change again. lol

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I know.. it's realllllly hard to get used to!



-

.... I really believe he's the type of person who could survive an even worsening economy ... We're already seeing how people being polled are blaming the GOP and not him. And all he really has to be is BETTER than the other guy (lol or girl.) ..... he's got charm and charisma and that got Reagan far ..... and he is a LOT more intelligent than the last guy who somehow managed to be elected twice, in spite of a slow-down in the economy and a war noone supported.

He says that if the American people feel we are going in the wrong direction then they will not re-elect him. Not "the American people won't re-elect me if I don't fix the economy in four years".

But then, he's not saying anything that isn't obviously true. If things haven't turned around by 2012, Obama will be held accountable for it by the electorate, unfair as it may be.

doing so because he's confident the stimulus will have a positive impact on the economy. Yes, things will continue to deteriorate for awhile, but the effects of the stimulus are bound to create some buoying of our economy before his term is complete.

Have no doubt though, the pukes have that sound bite locked and loaded for campaign commercials and radio spots as we speak. They salivate over comments like that. Obama just needs to be sure they are never in a position of having a valid time to launch it.

The flip side of the comment is that if/when it works, Obama all but solidifies a second term based on the ownership he has taken of this situation from the beginning.

-to the same sociopathic shitstains who caused the problem is not going to work.

It is GOP wingnuts who are trying to make this stimulus fail, not Obama. If he gives up then that really sucks, because you know the wingnuts aren't going to choose not to run for election in 2012.

Democrats are such fucking wimps sometimes. They never understand that the GOP doesn't play by the same set of rules they do.

Lower people's expectations on purpose so the results look better. Just my opinion. I pretty much think he knows what he's doing a lot better than we do.

GOBAMA! :patriot:

there for the same reason-

He didn't say if things don't improve he's gone, he said if we, the people believe that he is leading us in the right direction- and that's all he can do.. we'll have a different president. If 'stuff' doesn't work, if things go totally to hell, it's gonna take much more than 'another president' to get this country together.

He's telling the truth, the facts, without promising the moon- without minimizing the effort involved, or the patience and endurance it's gonna take to turn things around.

This 'crash' has been a LONG time coming, and it's going to mean real lifestyle changes for most people, but in the end, in the long run, those changes are for our own GOOD, and for the good of the world as a whole.

I'm very pleased that he is staying true to who I believed him to be- he isn't morphing into something else now that he's become president. And I think we couldn't have a better person steering us through this hellish time.


imo, fwiw

:hi:

unless the economy makes a recovery seems to not be the best thing to say potentially down the road...

It's not just that we will suffer, everything is on the line for him as well.

Which is why I do not mind criticism of anything he does (from non republicans). He has to listen to everyone and make the best decisions or we all lose.

...is the fact the HE is the leader who will be doing the leading in the next four years. He's bringing the focus back to himself as the prime mover. The GOP wants to weaken his leverage with the American people; undermine his authority as the president any way they can.

a second term. I recall overhearing conversations in 2004 about how Bush and only Bush knows about Iraq, and Kerry could never figure it out at that point.

Shrub owned up to NOTHING.