Obama Takes ‘Some Responsibility’ For Significant Democratic Losses

President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference in the Brady press briefing room at the White House, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
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During an interview that aired Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week,” President Obama said that he takes “some responsibility” for the Democratic losses in elections over the past few years.

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Obama if he should take some blame for the Democratic party becoming “hollowed out.”

“I take some responsibility for that,” Obama replied.

The President said that Democrats’ losses were partially circumstantial and that the party took a hit for the state of the economy when Obama took office.

“I think we did a really good job in saving this economy and putting us back on the track of growth. But what that meant is in 2010 there were a lot of folks who were still out of work. There were a lot of folks who had lost their homes or saw their home values plummet, their 401(k)s plummet. And we were just at the beginnings of a recovery,” he told ABC. “Whoever is president at that point is going to get hit, and his party’s going to get hit.”

But Obama also said that he was not able to lead the Democratic party while fulfilling his duties as president.

“I think that what is also true is that partly because my docket was really full here, so I couldn’t be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as commander-in-chief and president of the United States. We did not begin what I think needs to happen over the long haul, and that is rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level,” he said.

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Notable Replies

  1. Some responsibility? Yes. Not all of it. But more than he acknowledges. He underestimated the ferocity of the Republican attacks and their determination to oppose everything he proposed. He did not do enough to build up the Democratic Party, especially at the grass roots. His own organization–OFA–undermined fundraising for state and local Democratic organizations. Those are serious faults. They don’t undermine his presidency or his legacy, but they limited the first and will limit the second.

  2. Blah blah blah from the boy toy vapid doltish liar and coward-in-chief and genocidal maniac, a true POS.

  3. Nothing on Bilderbergers, Bohemian Grove, or our alien lizard overlords? Sad!

  4. He owns all of it. He fired Howard Dean and hired Tim Kaine and Debbie Wasserman-Schulz. He failed to protect this country from its biggest domestic enemy: The Republican Party. His leadership of the DNC destroyed the Democratic Party while it made the political class surrounding Obama and the Clintons rich even while they kept losing.

    He lost everything: The House, The Senate, The Supreme Court, and The Presidency. Everything. The progressive movement is likely now to set back decades because of Obama. He is gong to lose his legacy, plus the legacy of many progressive Presidents before him.

    Had he cared enough, he could have made the Democratic Party stronger and more progressive. But he didn’t. His justice department was totally rigged in favor of the rich and powerful over the rest of us. Bankers got away with stealing thousands of homes through mortgage fraud while Holder was jailing people for pot.

    Fuck you, Obama.

  5. Avatar for chammy chammy says:

    Fuck off georgeh.

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