“The Democratic party got hollowed out on your watch,” noted George Stephanopoulos. “About 1,000 seats lost in the Congress, Senate, governors, state houses. Is that on you?”
“I take some responsibility for that,” Obama admitted.
Still, he said, “some of it is circumstances.” Obama argued in particular that the Tea Party surge of 2010 was in reaction to economic factors largely outside of his control.
“I think that what is also true is that– partly because my docket was really full here– I couldn’t be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as commander in chief and president of the United States,” he said. “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.”
So pivot from his failure to pushing his OFA as the solution.
Obama is arguing that he might have been a disaster in the White House, but he'll be a really great community organizer. It's an odd, but unsurprising pitch to make.
Then it's all about blaming the economy and the reaction on Bush. But the trouble with that is Obama has been claiming that the economy is doing just great for a long while now. And he can't have it both ways. Either he's the victim of existing economic factors or he fixed the economy and all is well. It just can't be both.
What Obama won't address is the fact that his polarization backfired. His hard move left didn't put him on the right side of history. Instead it destroyed the moderate and conservative cores of the Dems. Radical billionaires like Soros financed a radical shift to the left that hollowed out the party. And Obama was the public face of that strategy. He's still doubling down on it.
Obama can't rebuild the Dems at the ground level because he's the reason it collapsed. All he can do is sign up the usual collective of angry college students, minority coalitions and assorted activists.
But nothing is ever the left's fault. Or Obama's fault.