"Obama strikes realist tone" (CNN interview)

Abby Phillip (Politico):

President Barack Obama acknowledged Tuesday that he may be a one-term president if voters’ patience with the pace of the economic recovery runs out by next November.

“The mess has been bigger than a lot of people anticipated at the time,” Obama said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer from Peosta, Iowa. “We have made steady progress on these fronts but we’re not making progress fast enough. What I continue to believe is that ultimately the buck stops with me. I’m going to be accountable.”

Throughout the interview, whether asked about the economy or next year’s campaign, the president struck a realist tone — conceding the scale of problems facing the country while insisting his administration is working diligently to fix them.

Obama said that even though Americans understand that the economy’s problems are “decades in the making,” voters are “impatient” to see more progress on the economy.

“I understand that and I’m sympathetic to that,” Obama said. MORE...