“You thought, ‘OK, we elect Barack and that’s it,’” Obama told a crowd of big-dollar donors gathered in the lush Hancock Park backyard of TV producer Shonda Rhimes. He reminded them that he’d warned that it wasn’t about electing him but about getting “our democracy to work.”
“I have got to have a Congress that has some sense and is willing to work and is willing to compromise and is focused on the American people. And we don’t have that right now.”
Obama is often candid about what he describes as Democrats’ chronic problem: low turnout in midterm elections. But his remarks Wednesday came with a sharper ribbing for a crowd he seemed to think could take it.
Democrats like the fun of a presidential campaign, Obama said. But “we’ve got to step it up in the midterms. Not when it’s easy, not when it’s sexy, not when there’s hope posters….”
While Democrats “don’t even know there’s an election,” Obama said, Republicans get to the polls.
“Lo and behold we’re surprised when John Boehner is speaker of the House! What happened to Nancy Pelosi? What happened is y’all didn’t vote. And that’s when all kinds of … stuff happened,” Obama said, pausing as if deliberating on whether to keep the rant clean. “That’s what it was — stuff.”
