Obama on Fox transcript
The transcript of Obama on Fox is up.
As I mentioned, Obama is trying to separate himself from the most strident parts of his base, and he does this pretty effectively throughout the interview:
WALLACE: Such as.
OBAMA: No, look, I think this is fair. I would point out, though, for example, that when I voted for a tort reform measure that was fiercely opposed by the trial lawyers, I got attacked pretty hard from the left.
During the Roberts -
WALLACE: John Roberts, Supreme Court.
OBAMA: John Roberts nomination, although I voted against him, I strongly defended some of my colleagues who had voted for him on the Daily Kos, and was fiercely attacked as somebody who is, you know, caving in to Republicans on these fights.
In fact, there are a lot of liberal commentators who think I'm too accommodating. So here is my philosophy. I want to do what works for the American people. And both at the state legislative level and at the federal legislative level, I have always been able to work together with Republicans to find compromise and to find common ground.
This above is where Obama gets to his real task (which I posted about expecting last night). A shorter Obama: The far left? That's over there, and I'm willing to take them on.
WALLACE: You have suggested 28.
OBAMA: Well, but what I've said is, I certainly would not raise it higher than it was under Ronald Reagan.
On Clinton:
OBAMA: We're not going to have debates between now and Indiana.
WALLACE: You say it's premature to discuss running mates. Are you at least open to the possibility of running with Hillary Clinton with places on the ticket to be determined?
OBAMA: I'm going to punt on that question until I'm the nominee.
OBAMA: Look, we've done a wonderful job raising money from the grassroots. I'm very proud of the fact that in March, in February for example, 90 percent of our donations came over the Internet. Our average donation is $96. And we've done an amazing job, I think, of mobilizing people, to finance our campaigns in small increments.
I have promised that I will sit down with John McCain and talk about, can we preserve a public system, as long as we are taking into account third party, independent expenditures, because what I don't intend to -
WALLACE: If you could get that agreement you would go for a publicly financed campaign?
OBAMA: What I don't intend to do is to allow huge amounts of money to be spent by the RNC, the Republican National Committee or by organizations like the Swift Boat organization and just stand there without -
WALLACE: If you get that agreement?
OBAMA: I would be very interested in pursuing public financing because I think not every candidate is going to be able to do what I've done in this campaign and I think it's important to think about future campaigns.
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