I woulda thumped Trump
O: People buy my vision; Hill blew it
President Obama claims he would have handily trounced Donald Trump if only the Constitution had let him seek a third term.
“I am confident in [my progressive] vision because I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could have mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it,” Obama told his former top adviser David Axelrod on Axelrod’s podcast, “The Axe Files.”
“I know that in conversations that I’ve had with people around the country, even some people who disagreed with me, they would say, ‘The vision, the direction that you point towards is the right one,’ ” the lameduck president said.
But Trump had a different take.
“President Obama said that he thinks he would have won against me. He should say that but I say NO WAY! — jobs leaving, ISIS, OCare, etc.,” he tweeted Monday afternoon.
And Obama took a shot at Hillary Clinton for failing to concentrate on grass-roots efforts to connect with voters who were alienated from Beltway politics.
“Part of what we have to do to rebuild is to be there, and that means organizing, that means caring about state parties, it means caring about local races, state boards or school boards and city councils and state legislative races and not thinking that, somehow, just a great set of progressive policies that we present to the New York Times editorial board will win the day,” he lectured.
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1947 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been elected to four terms, limits chief executives to two terms in office.
Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden all campaigned hard for Clinton, believing her victory was essential to preserving Obama’s legacy.
After her stunning loss — with most polls predicting she would win right up to Election Day — Obama worried that Americans would see his message of “hope” and “change” and progressive agenda as nothing more than a naive dream.
“Obviously in the wake of the election and Trump winning, a lot of people have suggested that somehow, it really was a fantasy. What I would argue is that the culture actually did shift, that the majority does buy into the notion of a one America that is tolerant and diverse and open, full of energy and dynamism,” he said.