Obama on CBS: "I didn't overpromise"
Obama told '60 Minutes' that he is still determined to change Washington. | AP Photo
By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 12/11/11 6:50 PM EST Barack Obama offered a spirited defense of his presidency in an interview that aired Sunday on “60 Minutes,” framing the 2012 election as a “contrast in visions.”
Stressing that the views that got him elected in 2008 still drive him, even as many supporters voice dissatisfaction, Obama said he is still determined to change Washington and to make ordinary Americans’ lives better.
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“I didn’t overpromise. And I didn’t underestimate how tough this was going to be,” Obama said in the sitdown with CBS News’s Steve Kroft that was conducted on two days this week, in Washington and also in Osawatomie, Kan., where the president on Tuesday delivered a speech calling this a “make-or-break moment” for working and middle class Americans.
The vision he offered in 2008 was something he “always believed … was a long-term project,” Obama told Kroft. “Reversing a culture here in Washington, dominated by special interests, it was going to take more than a year, it was going to take more than two years. It was going to take more than one term.”
He also acknowledged something he’s rarely said, that it “probably takes more than one president” to affect the kind of change he speaks about, but he, nonetheless, intends to keep fighting for it.
“I’m a persistent son of a gun. I just stay at it. And I’m just going to keep on staying at it, as long as I’m in this office. And we’re going to get it right. And America will succeed. I am absolutely confident about that.”
Even though he faces a steady stream of attacks, Obama said he never seriously considered not running for reelection. The first lady, who was resistant to his running in the first place, “reminds me, ‘You volunteered for this thing.’”
But he can’t imagine not trying for a second term “not because our quality of life might not be better if I were not president. Not because Michelle is so enamored with me being president. But because we both think that what we’re doing is really important for a lot of people out there.”
With less than 11 months until Americans go to the polls to either reelect or reject him, Obama described the presidential race as one between two visions that are “stark” in contrast.
“It doesn’t really matter who the nominee is going to be. The core philosophy that they’re expressing is the same,” he said. “And the American people are going to have a good choice and it’s going to be a good debate.”
Though the president said in October that he wouldn’t be paying attention to the fight for the Republican presidential nomination until “everybody’s voted off the island,” he offered views of the two front-runners as skilled politicians with plenty of experience as insiders.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is “somebody who’s been around a long time, and is good on TV, is good in debates,” Obama said, before pivoting to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was until recently nearly the sole target of national Democrats’ attacks, saying “Romney has shown himself to be somebody … who’s good at politics, as well. He’s had a lot of practice at it.”
He didn’t say who he thinks will win: “You know, I think that they will be going at it for a while. When the Republican Party has decided who its nominee is going to be, then we’ll have plenty of time to worry about it.”
Whether Obama’s vision for the country will prevail has yet to be seen. A CBS News poll conducted ahead of the interview found his approval rating at 44 percent, while 54 percent of Americans don’t think he deserves to be reelected. The key issue at play is the economy, with just one third of Americans approving of his leadership in that area.
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