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Barack Obama on unpopular decisions

2,525 views · Published 6 June 2008 · 1:37 · Indexed 29 September 2026

Channel: Iowa PBS · 2008 · News & Politics

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Sen. Barack Obama talks about his ability to make decisions even if they aren't popular.
This interview took place on November 9, 2007, at Iowa Public Television. http://www.iptv.org/campaign08/

Glover: Dave has ticked off some major problems facing the country.   If in fact you're successful in winning the white house, aren't you going to have to make some deeply difficult and unpopular decisions pretty early on?

Obama: Yes. I think that -- well, let me say that I think they will be difficult. If they are explained properly, they may not be unpopular.   Here are my priorities in the first hundred days.

Ending the war in Iraq, which means that we've got to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and figure out how can we safely and carefully, responsibly start removing our combat troops and initiating the kind of diplomacy insides of Iraq and regionally that is necessary.

Number two, get a process going where we are providing health care coverage for all Americans, and that's going to be a transparent, open process. We're not going to repeat the mistakes of the 1993 effort, where everything was behind closed doors. This is going to be an open process.

Everybody is going to have a seat at the table, and we are going to have legislation introduced by the end of the year that achieves universal coverage.   And the third thing is really starting to work extensively on energy.   This is a growing crisis.

And we have to start really ramping up our investment in solar and wind and biodiesel. I was in Keokuk -- they just got a new plant there, 400 well-paying jobs, building wind turbines. That's the kind of potential future for America and rural America that's available to us, but we've got to have leadership from the white house to do it.

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