ericadawn16 | Feb. 7th, 2010

Words of wisdom from President Obama:

The easiest way to keep your poll numbers high is to say nothing and to do nothing that offends anybody.

The minute you actually start doing something, somebody is going to disagree with you.

I seem to remember coming to Tampa two weeks before the election -- and you know what I said? This is a quote, people can check -- I'm sure it was reported in the newspapers. I said, "Change never comes without a fight." That was true then. It's true now. Change never comes without a fight, Florida. So I won't stop fighting; I know you won't, either.

I don't want gridlock on issue after issue after issue when there's so many urgent problems to solve. And I don't want an attitude, "If Obama loses, then we win." I mean, that can't be a platform. Even if you disagree with me on some specific issues, all of us should be rooting for each other. All of us should be working for America moving forward and solving problems.

So that, you know, "you lose, I win" mentality, that mindset may be good for short-term politics, but it's not a mindset that's equal to these times. It's not worthy of you. What you deserve is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences, overcome our politics, do what is hard, do what is necessary to advance the American Dream and keep it alive for our time and for all time.

We have come through a tough year, and a tough decade. But a new year is here and a new decade is stretching before us. Opportunities are there for the taking: every business owner working on the innovation of tomorrow; every student reaching for a better future; every ready -- everyone ready to roll up their sleeves and play their part in rebuilding America.

Yes, we can. We don't back down. We don't quit. We are Americans. And today, here with all of you, I have never been more hopeful about our future than I am right now. I am confident that we can make this happen and move this country forward.

My belief is, is that a basic principle in our Constitution is that if you're obeying the law, if you're following the rules, that you should be treated the same, regardless of who you are. I think that principle applies to gay and lesbian couples.

Look, if you are -- regardless of your personal opinions, the notion that somebody who's working really hard for 30 years can't take their death benefits and transfer them to the person that they love the most in the world and who has supported them all their lives, that just doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem right. And I think it's the right thing to do.

Look, we've gone through a very difficult year. But I have great optimism that we have begun to dig ourselves out of this hole. In order for us to do it successfully, we're going to have to work together, we're going to have to listen to each other, we're going to have to be respectful of each other.

So I want to end on mentioning something that I talked about last night. You know, our political dialogue in this country has always been noisy and messy because we come from different places, we've got different ideas, different beliefs. I understand all that. But we're all Americans. We all should anticipate that the other person, even if they disagree with us, has the best of intentions. We don't have to call them names. We don't have to demonize them. And that's true whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, whether you are a conservative or a liberal, or an independent -- being respectful and listening to other people's point of views, and understanding that most of these issues are complicated.

Look, let me take the example of health care. Part of the reason why it's so easy to scare people about health care, even if they don't like it the way it is now, is because you've got doctors, you've got nurses, you've got hospitals, you've got insurance systems, you've got Medicaid, you've got Medicare, you've got the VA system -- all these systems constitute several trillion dollars, one-sixth of our economy. Even if you come up with a great plan that lowers premiums and creates greater competition and ensures freedom for you to choose your doctor and is bringing down the deficit -- all the things that I've claimed -- and prevents insurance companies from abusing customers -- even if we do all that, there's going to be somebody out there in a $2 trillion system who's unhappy with something. Right?

So they'll complain, well, you know, I'm a medical device manufacturer and if you reform the system that might force me to change how I sell my products; or there's going to be a doctor who says, well, you know what, right now I get charged this way and if you change how Medicare reimburses, then I might have to change my billing system and that's going to cost me a few thousand dollars and I don't like that.

The reason I'm pointing this out is if we're going to do big things on energy, or health care, or infrastructure, then we're going to have some differences. We've got to work them through. Nothing that human beings do will be perfect. But we shouldn't sort of assume that the other side is either heartless and doesn't care about sick people, or is some socialist communist who's trying to take over the health care system, or -- you know, we start getting into these caricatures of each other. They're so damaging. And, frankly, the political parties and the media haven't been helping. They've been making it worse.

I want to dial some of that back. Let's start thinking of each other as Americans first, figuring out how we can help one another, figuring out how we can move this country forward. I'm confident we'll do great.

Read the entire transcript from the Tampa Visit:
http://wokv.com/localnews/2010/01/full-transcript-of-the-preside.html