Daily Mail: Obama 'sucked less than Romney': Former US Sen. Bob Kerrey

Former Senator Kerrey is a Democrat from Nebraska who served in the senate for two terms from 1989-2001. He really takes President Obama to task during a recent interview:

Former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey thinks President Barack Obama, a fellow Democrat, was re-elected in 2012 because he 'sucked less' than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The Nebraskan straight-talker told MailOnline in an exclusive interview that Obama isn't up to the job of bringing liberals and conservatives to the table to rescue America's slowly choking entitlement programs.

And Obama, he said Wednesday in his Manhattan office, knew full well he was lying when he promised that the Affordable Care Act would allow Americans to keep insurance plans they liked.

'He had to know he was misleading the audience,' Kerrey said quietly, recalling the newly minted president's countless promises as Congress and the public debated his signature health insurance overhaul.

There was a time I fervently followed what was going on in Washington, DC. These days I don't do that great of a job, however, I do recognize if you believe quick blurbs here and there that there is a polarization going on these days. Perhaps worse now than ever. What does Sen. Kerrey say about this?

Asked how to break the congressional logjam, Kerrey thought for a moment and said, softly, 'It takes a president. It takes a president.'

Is Barack Obama that president? Kerrey stayed silent but shook his head.

'I'm shaking my head "no,"' he acknowledged, finally.

'If he was up to it, he would have done it. He can't run for re-election.'

Finally this is what he says about "Obamacare":

When the Affordable Care Act met its most vigorous Republican opposition in late 2009, the U.S. economy was still floundering and the business community's eyes were focused on GDP growth, not a new set of health-benefit mandates.

'I wouldn't have done health care,' Kerrey said.'I think the big mistake was ... to say, "Whew! We've got the stimulus done, okay, the economy's going to come bouncing back in 12 months – let's do health care,"' he explained.

'Only the economy didn't come bouncing back.'

'We're teetering on the edge of going out of business through most of 2009,' Kerrey recalled. 'And I think you need to just keep driving, driving, driving on the economy, and make it as bipartisan as possible.'

Obama compounded his rhetorical mistakes with political ones, he said, by agreeing to ditch a proposal allowing Americans to buy into the Medicare system the way they would buy a policy from a private insurer.

'"And now you want to do health care," Kerrey imagined Democratic pols telling Obama near the end of his first year in office. 'It's okay, you're going to do health care. I haven't talked you out of it, Mr. President. [But] don't give on the public option.'

Even if the Obamacare law had died in Congress, he insisted, the politics of holding fast to the public option would have favored Democrats since Medicare is among the federal government's most universally popular programs.

'I would have been much better off campaigning saying, "My opponent does not want you to have the right to buy into Medicare,"' Kerrey mused.

If only the Prez had this prudent advice during his first term in office.