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US President Barack Obama (AFP/File/Saul Loeb)
"I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," Obama said in the interview, excerpts of which were released on the ABC News website.
The president, who last week saw his Democratic Party lose its supermajority in Congress when Republicans snatched a Senate seat in Massachusetts, said he would not shirk from tackling big issues.
"You know, there is a tendency in Washington to believe our job description, of elected officials, is to get reelected.
"That's not our job description. Our job description is to solve problems and to help people."
"I don't want to look back on my time here and say to myself all I was interested in was nurturing my own popularity."
Obama goes into the State of the Union address with his ambitious health care reform plan in limbo, doubts clouding his wider agenda and his poll numbers hovering around the critical 50 percent level.
But in the interview, he dismissed the idea of using opinion poll performance as a barometer of his presidency.
"I went through this (in the 2008 election campaign).
"When your poll numbers drop, you are an idiot. When your poll numbers are high, you are a genius. If my poll numbers are low, then I am cool and cerebral, and cool and detached.
"If my poll numbers are high," (people say) 'boy he's calm and reasoned all right'."
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The president, who last week saw his Democratic Party lose its supermajority in Congress when Republicans snatched a Senate seat in Massachusetts, said he would not shirk from tackling big issues.
"You know, there is a tendency in Washington to believe our job description, of elected officials, is to get reelected.
"That's not our job description. Our job description is to solve problems and to help people."
"I don't want to look back on my time here and say to myself all I was interested in was nurturing my own popularity."
Obama goes into the State of the Union address with his ambitious health care reform plan in limbo, doubts clouding his wider agenda and his poll numbers hovering around the critical 50 percent level.
But in the interview, he dismissed the idea of using opinion poll performance as a barometer of his presidency.
"I went through this (in the 2008 election campaign).
"When your poll numbers drop, you are an idiot. When your poll numbers are high, you are a genius. If my poll numbers are low, then I am cool and cerebral, and cool and detached.
"If my poll numbers are high," (people say) 'boy he's calm and reasoned all right'."
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