There is little doubt that Obama was sincere in his belief that Washington is driven by irrational partisanship. He has said similar things on countless occasions, starting with the 2004 Democratic keynote address in Boston that vaulted the then-state senator to national acclaim. My whole campaign has been premised from the start on the idea that we have to fundamentally change how Washington works.” What follows are 10 quotations - some famous, some not - that Obama surely hopes voters won’t dwell on as he makes his case for a second term. ( Also on POLITICO: 2012 presidential debate schedule) He is certain to be confronted with many of these contradictions by Mitt Romney in Wednesday’s encounter. The economy and other problems were more impervious to Obama’s remedies than he expected Washington, and the rest of the world, were less impressed by the purity of his intentions than he imagined. But many of Obama’s off-the-mark quotes echo because - as a president with a short history in Washington and no previous executive experience - he faced an especially jarring collision between his confident assumptions about how he would govern and the reality of what was possible.
Cumulatively, the quotations are an anthology of lofty aspirations that fell to earth and boastful predictions that didn’t come true.Īll presidents have plans that don’t work out. Obama’s own words, and those of his closest aides, culled from his first campaign and the early phase of his presidency, tell the story.
( Also on POLITICO: POLITICO’s Swing-State map) But, as the president and his team well know, Obama in Denver on Wednesday will be defending a first-term record that looks strikingly different than the one he imagined when he took office in January 2009.
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