Obama: My 2008 Coalition ‘Was Not Transferable’ to Hillary’s 2016 Campaign

‘When you are in the party in power and people are going through hard times like they were in 2010, they are going to punish in some degree the president’s party’

EXCERPT:

OBAMA: "Basically folks care about their families, they care about having meaningful work, they care about making sure their kids have more opportunity than they did. They want to be safe, they want to feel like things are fair. And whoever leads the DNC and any candidate with the Democratic brand going forward, I want them to feel as if they can reach out and find that common ground -- speak to all of America. And that requires some organization.

And you’re right that -- and I said this in my earlier remarks -- that what I was able to do during my campaigns, I wasn’t able to do during midterms. It’s not that we didn’t put in time and effort into it. I spent time and effort into it, but the coalition I put together didn’t always turn out to be transferable. And the challenge is that -- you know, some of that just has to do with the fact that when you’re in the party in power and people are going through hard times like they were in 2010, they’re going to punish, to some degree, the President’s party regardless of what organizational work is done. Some of it has to do with just some deep-standing traditional challenges for Democrats, like during off-year election, the electorate is older and we do better with a younger electorate."

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