Obama: one good term better than two bad ones
AFP
WASHINGTON- US President Barack Obama said in an interview Monday that he would rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre leader who served a full eight years.
As he navigates his latest political storm, Obama told ABC News ahead of his State of the Union address on Wednesday that he wanted to look back in future at his time in office and say he had tackled the most challenging issues -- not just what was popular.
US President Barack Obama (AFP/File/Saul Loeb)
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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