Obama says would like to run more pragmatic campaigns

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama has said he would like to be more pragmatic in future electoral campaigns, but added that such a change would not take place overnight.

Becoming the first sitting American president to appear on the “The Daily Show’, Obama told Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, when asked the question: “Yes we can, but…” the President was cut off by the audience’s laughter. “… It is not going to happen overnight,” he finished.

With less than a week to go for Senate polls in which the Democrats are likely to fare badly, CBS News quoted Obama as saying that there were things his administration accomplished that people “don’t even know about.”

The president was comfortable, slouching in his seat, his jacket unbuttoned to reveal a light blue or purple tie. He rarely sipped his water from a cup Stewart dubbed “Mug Force One.”

He had a warm welcome from the audience of mostly twenty-somethings. When Stewart asked if Obama always enjoyed such a welcome, the president joked, “not at the Republican Congressional Caucus.”

Referencing a 2008 campaign speech signature, Stewart opened interview asking Mr. Obama, “Are we the people we were waiting for? Or does it turn out those people are still out there- and we don’t have their number?”

Mr. Obama said multiple times that he knew people were frustrated.

Stewart referenced the president’s hiring of Larry Summers for the National Economic Council. Summers served in the Clinton administration.

Summers did “a heckuva job,” Stewart said, corrected by the president, “You don’t want to use that phrase, dude.”

Obama reiterated that most jobs lost in “toughest years of any time since the Great Depression” were before his administration’s economic policies were put into place.

In a discussion on health care reform, in which Stewart referenced a conversation he had with a member of the audience before taping began, Stewart told the president he ran with such “audacity,” but that his legislative approaches have seemed “timid” at times.

Laundry-listing positive effects of his health care reform, Obama said, “Jon, I love your show, but this is something where I have a profound disagreement with you… this notion that health care was timid.”

Before he exited, Obama asked if he could make one “plug,” to which Stewart asked, “Are you dropping an album?” The president encouraged the young audience to vote Tuesday. He also told the Comedy Central host it would have “made a difference” if Stewart held his rally two years ago.

Calling Obama the “most interesting guest ever,” Stewart said he had to re-shoot the show’s open to allow the presidential interview to run in its entirety. (ANI)