Obama slams Democratic Party's insufficient outreach in reflective press conference

President Obama spoke about the failure of the Democratic Party.

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last updated 15 November 2016

In his first press conference since Donald Trump won the presidential election, President Obama on Monday offered up his take on where the Democratic Party went wrong. "I believe that we have better ideas. But I also believe that good ideas don't matter if people don't hear them," Obama said, reflecting on Hillary Clinton's shocking Election Day loss.

He then brought up the fact that he won Iowa during his presidential race in 2008 "not because the demographics dictated" he would win there, but because he "spent 87 days going to every small town." Obama insisted it's a "healthy thing for the Democratic Party to go through some reflection," but specified that a good chunk of that introspection should be focused on "how we organize politically." "We have to compete everywhere. We have to show up everywhere. We have to show up at a grassroots level," he said.

Despite remarks that New York journalist Jesse Singal likened to "seriously subtweeting" Clinton — who eschewed campaigning in certain states thought to be safely Democratic in favor of repeat appearances in more obvious battlegrounds — Obama remained hopeful that change is within reach for his party. Obama pushed "discouraged" Democrats to think back to the party's dire circumstances in 2005 and realize that "things change pretty rapidly ... but they don't change inevitably."