"The easiest thing to do would be to say this is too hard. Let’s just regroup and lick our wounds -- try to hang on," Obama said at the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee. "We have had a long and difficult debate on healthcare. And there are some, maybe even the majority in this town, who say to walk away.Full transcript of Obama's speech at the DNC winter meeting today. Full video is here.
"Just in case there is any confusion out there. I am not going to walk away from health insurance reform," Obama said. The Hill
An excerpt:
"I was talking to Michelle the other day, and Michelle is always a good barometer. And, you know, the front page was, oh, you know, 'What's Obama going to do to get his poll numbers up, and are the Democrats all in a tizzy' and this and that. And she said, 'You know, listen, if you're the average family, if I'm a mom out there and I'm working and my husband's working but we're worried about losing our jobs or hours have been cut back, costs of our health care premiums just went up 30% and credit card company just jacked up our interest rates 39% and our home values have gone down by $100,000, our 401(k)s all banged up and suddenly someone calls up and says, So, how do you think President Obama's doing's doing right now? What are they going to say? What are they going to say?'
"Of course people are frustrated, and they have every right to be. And I know that during the course of this gathering, some of the press have been running around, 'Well, what do you think you should be doing' and this and that and the other and, you know, 'What's the strategy?' Look, when unemployment is 9.7%, when we are still digging ourselves out of an extraordinary recession, people are going to be frustrated. And they're going to be looking to the party in power to try to fix it. When you've got another party that says 'We don't want to do anything about it,' of course people are going to be frustrated.
"Folks are out there working hard every day, trying to meet their responsibilities. But all around them during this last lost decade, what they've seen is a wave of irresponsibility from Wall Street to Washington. They see a capital city where every day is treated like Election Day and every act, every comment, every gesture passes through a political filter. They've seen the outsides influence of lobbyists and special interests who too often hijack the agenda by leveraging campaign money and connections. Of course they wonder if their leaders can muster the will to overcome all of that and confront the real problems that touch their lives.
"But here's what everybody here has to remember - that's why I ran for president. That's why you worked so hard to elect a Democratic Congress. We knew this stuff was tough. But we stepped up because we decided we were going to take the responsibility of changing it. And it may not be easy, but change is coming.
