Obama Gives Pep Talk to His Organizing for Action Troops
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The White House(WASHINGTON) — Term-limited President Obama said he’s got one last campaign in him: making sure that the Affordable Care Act works.
“We’re not backing off one bit,” Obama told members of his grassroots organization Organizing for Action during a conference call pep talk. OFA members have been out explaining and selling Americans on the virtues of Obama’s signature policy.
“Obviously this has been hampered by Healthcare.gov and the fact that — eventually it’ll be the easiest place to shop for healthcare – but because of the problems in the website that has made it tougher for folks who are very interested to enroll,” he said. “The good news is its getting better every week … but we’re still going to have to make sure that we don’t use the website alone to sign people up.”
“I hope that you still have as much fight in you as I do because we’re not going to stop until we get this done,” a tired-sounding Obama told about 200,000 OFA members on the call.
“We’ve experienced discouragement and setbacks and naysayers every step of the way but when you’re on the right side of something then it gives you energy and it gives you motivation.”
Obama also detoured off healthcare to address the fact that the Senate has not confirmed many of his judicial nominees.
Four of his five nominations to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals have been filibustered, with one being filibustered twice. “This kind of obstruction is completely unprecedented,” Obama said. “The American people and our judicial system deserve better. … It’s time to get it done. .. It’s really time for Senate Republicans to stop playing partisan politics.”
“We’ve had problems throughout my term with Senate Republicans blocking our judicial nominations, often times for no good reason … and they just slow walk it and people will take six months or a year to try to get a confirmation and its not the way our Constitution was designed,” he said when asking his OFA team to “push and prod our elected representatives to do the right thing.”
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