President Barack Obama’s senior re-election campaign strategist, David Axelrod, will not accept that Democrats may be to blame for the gridlock in Washington, noting that some Democrats see Obama as “too eager” to bring Democrats and Republicans together to compromise.
“I’m not willing to assign, sort of, equal blame for what’s happened in Washington. You know, there are Democrats in this room who I think would argue that the president was too eager to try and find a path forward; was too eager to try to bring people together in the face of the evidence that the other side didn’t want to do that,” said Axelrod at the “Politics and Eggs” breakfast series at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics on Tuesday.
Recent guests speakers at the breakfast include 2012 Republican presidential candidates Governor Rick Perry of Texas and former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah.
“I don’t regret his making the effort because I think people elected him to get things done. They didn’t elect him to wage a partisan war,” said Axelrod.
WATCH Axelrod’s remarks:
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In an address at the Ronald Regan Presidential Library on Tuesday, Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey accused Obama of dividing the nation and blamed Congress for waging a “war” with itself.
“We watch a Congress at war with itself because they are unwilling to leave campaign-style politics at the Capitol’s door. The result is a debt ceiling limitation debate that made our democracy appear as if we could no longer effectively govern ourselves,” Christie said Tuesday in Simi Valley, Calif.
“And still we continue to wait and hope that our president will finally stop being a bystander in the Oval Office. We hope that he will shake off the paralysis that has made it impossible for him to take on the really big things that are so obvious to all Americans and to a watching and anxious world.”
WATCH Christie’s remarks:
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