Believe it or not, staunch Obama supporter Chris Matthews was unimpressed with Obama’s victory speech after winning the 2012 presidential election.
According to Matthews, Obama did not properly credit those who helped him win and did a disservice to the Democratic Party by not recognizing others who tasted victory.
“I may be the only one here who’s not satisfied with that speech,” Matthews began (and he was correct). He quickly went on to lambaste the president:
The Democratic party really wasn’t given any attention tonight. The president is the leader of the Democratic party. Whatever forging of relationship he’s going to do with the other side, it’s going to start with unity.They did very well, these Senate candidates, because they ran on the same platform, basically, as everyone pointed out tonight: stronger regulation of Wall Street, redress of inequality in income through tax policy, real fighting for that stuff. Dealing with industrial policy: We really go in and work for a company, like the auto industry, and save it. You don’t sit around and watch it. You don’t talk about bankruptcy.There’s real policy aggressiveness here that’s come about over the last several years with the Democratic party at the front of it, and I didn’t sense that he acted as a party leader, or even as a leader of a faction. It was him, again, alone.
He then pivoted to Obama having to unify Republicans and Democrats but doing it with “power,” something Obama hasn’t done: “They [Democrats need to] go to the table and say, ‘Look, we’ll give you some stuff to get you aboard, but we’re coming with our program.’ And I think that’s something that he’s going to have to do or we’re going to be stuck with this fiscal cliff again, with the dicking around — excuse me — about debt ceilings again — all this stupid stuff that gets him involved with weakness.”
Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton disagreed, even though Maddow admitted that now the country isn’t in economy recovery. Matthews eventually retorded: “Rach, Rach, you congratulate your fellows, you support your confederates, you unite your party, and then you go into negotiations with the other party. That could have been done tonight.”
“It’s been a problem, It’s been a problem with the president,” he continued later. “I know he won tonight, it’s fabulous he won tonight. … But I would like to see a united leadership here, not just a solo act.”
When Maddow responded that comes “Wednesday,” Matthews delivered his most scathing critique.
“I keep waiting for Wednesday. I’ve been waiting for four years.”
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