WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama used a CBS “60 Minutes” interview Sunday to size up the two frontrunners in the Republican presidential primary, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, in some of his most extensive comments on the GOP field to date.
In response to a question about Gingrich, Obama described the former speaker of the House as “somebody who’s been around a long time, and is good on TV, is good in debates,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Obama described Romney as someone who has “shown himself to be somebody who’s good at politics, as well. He’s had a lot of practice at it.”
Besides serving as Massachusetts’ governor, Romney lost a 1994 Senate race to Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, and he failed in his bid for the presidential nomination in 2008.
The comments come as both Gingrich and Romney have been pummeling Obama on the campaign trail and in debates. Obama has so far tried to avoid engaging them more directly.
Obama said he expected the battle for the GOP nomination would take some time to settle, but he suggested he would be ready to draw a contrast against whoever emerged as his challenger in the November election.
“You know, Joe Biden has a good expression. He says, ‘Don’t judge me against the Almighty, judge me against the alternative.'”
He added later that the “core philosophy” Gingrich and Romney are “expressing is the same. And the contrast in visions between where I want to take the country and where they say they want to take the country is going to be stark. And the American people are going to have a good choice and it’s going to be a good debate.”
During the same interview, Obama rejected the charge that his economic plan amounts to a redistribution of wealth, saying his real goal is to rebuild a strong middle-class America, the New York Post reported.
“What’s happened to the bargain?” Obama asked CBS correspondent Steve Kroft. “What happened to the American deal that says, you know, we are focused on building a strong middle class?”
“The question is going to be, in this election,” Obama added, “whether or not we are able to reclaim that vital center of American thought and American values that says, we’re all in this together and, you know, it matters if we are building a broad-based middle class, where everybody is able to do their part and everybody’s able to succeed.”
Obama also continued his criticism of Republicans for holding up progress on the economy and the deficit, saying the GOP has failed to budge in its stand on refusing to raise taxes.
“And what I said to them was a balanced approach means exactly what it says. It means it’s balanced,” he said. “What we haven’t seen is any serious movement on the other side.”
Obama conceded that Americans have every right to be upset at the current state of the US economy.
“We’ve gone through an incredibly difficult time in this country. And I would be surprised if the American people felt satisfied right now,” the president said
“They shouldn’t feel satisfied. We’ve got a lot more work to do in order to get this country and the economy moving in a way that benefits everybody, as opposed to just a few.”