STEPHANOPOULOS: But it sounds like you're saying -- no second thoughts on your fundamental strategy?What the President does understand is that the Village is part and parcel of the problem. Good for him.
OBAMA: Well look, what I would say is that first of all, I wish we had gotten it done faster because I think that if we had gotten health care done faster, people would have understood the degree to which every single day George, health care is part of a broader context of how am I going to be able to move the middle class forward in a more secure and stable way, and I think that what's happened is, is over the course of this year, there's been a fixation, an obsession in terms of the focus on the health care process in Congress that distracted from all the other things that we're trying to do to make sure that this economy is working for ordinary people.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that going to continue, though? You're now in a situation, coming out of Massachusetts, you don't have 60 votes in the Senate right now. What is the strategy on health care going forward?
OBAMA: Well, here's my belief, that this is not a problem that's going to go away. This was a problem whether or not we did health care this year. If we hadn't taken on health care, then what people would be asking right now is, why is it having promised to do something about that during the campaign, that we're seeing millions of people who have lost their health care and their premiums go up.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But they're saying now, they want your health care plan to go away. It's just not popular; the majority are opposed.
OBAMA: Well, here's what I know is that when they actually find out what's in the proposals for insurance reform, for making sure that we're making health care more affordable, those specific provisions are actually very popular.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You made that speech in August.
OBAMA: Well, and one of the things that I have learned in Washington is you have to repeat yourself a lot because because unfortunately it doesn't penetrate. But I am determined to make sure that the issues that are making middle class families, ordinary Americans less secure and less stable are fixed.
(More after the jump...)
STEPHANOPOULOS: But we're not there right now. How much of that is your fault that republicans and democrats haven't come together?
OBAMA: You know, we have a political culture that has built up over time that has gotten more and more polarized. My hope was a year ago today when I was being sworn in that reversing that process was going to be easier partly because we were entering into a crisis situation and I thought that the urgency of the moment would allow us to join together and make common cause. That hasn't happened. Some of it, frankly, is I think a strategic decision that was made on the side of the opposition that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: But they say you made a strategic decision to hand over your agenda to democratic leaders in Congress.
And he understands now that wasting time in June with Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Chuck Grassley is why we're still having this health care reform fight in January when it could have been done by September. He gets that the GOP is opposing everything he does and then saying "You're in charge. You have to take responsibility for your failure to get anything done. We're going to stop you from getting anything done, and you're stuck with the blame. We win in the end." As I have been saying exhaustively, the GOP Plan is to destroy Obama in just this fashion. Block anything from getting done and count on the backlash against the guys in charge. There is zero political downside right now in our current Village scenario for the GOP to obstruct Obama's efforts to fix anything by voting no with every single vote that they have. The Village will blame Obama and the Democrats with their "Democrats should be more bipartisan" drivel. The Republicans win.
OBAMA: Well, let me finish -- let me finish the question. The -- I think that some of it had to do with a sense that the best political strategy was to simply say no. I think part of it had to do with the fact that you've got a lot of old habits and ideological baggage in Congress that have built up over time and people just aren't accustomed to working together. I mean, the Senate is a classic example of an institution that works only if people are talking, listening to each other, giving ground...
My real problem is that the White House should have seen this coming last February. Obama understands now, clearly. He gets the Village and the GOP is setting him up and will double down on the attacks no matter what he does.
Does Obama see the way out of this obvious trap? Maybe. It's time to improve the health care reform bill through reconcilitation and give it to the American people as a start. Mission number two is to knock some serious heads on Wall Street.
Does he have the courage to go down that path?
That, by far, is the more important question.
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