WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said he considers himself the underdog in the 2012 presidential election. And he has no problem with that.
In a Monday interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama said he is "absolutely" the underdog in his upcoming race, due in large part to the dismal economy playing out on his watch. His comment came in response to Stephanopoulos indicating that a new ABC poll coming out later Monday found that 55 percent of Americans think Obama will be a one-term president.
"I don't mind," Obama said of the poll's results. "I'm used to being an underdog."
Ultimately, however, he predicted that voters will pick their next president based on who presents a vision for the future that can help ordinary families recapture the American Dream. And that, he said, is something he knows just how to do.
"When I ran in 2008, the basic idea was that ordinary folks who are working hard, doing everything right, just weren't getting ahead," Obama said, citing people's frustrations with the rising costs of health care and college education. "The whole approach of everything I've tried to do over the last three years is to say, 'What are those big changes that we have to make so that our kids are getting the best education? [So that] we've got the best infrastructure in the world? [So that] we've got the tools that allow us to succeed again?'"