Obama: I Need New Yorkers to Move West and Vote Democrat

President Obama joked during a New York fundraiser that he needed the attendees to move west to increase his support.

During his speech, Obama told a story about a woman who asked how she could help him, and he joked that she should move to North Dakota.

Obama complained about “structural disadvantages” with the political system, pointing out that although Republican ideas did not have support from the majority of Americans, the political system kept Democratic majorities out of reach.

Obama said he had been stymied in trying to enact his agenda because “Washington doesn’t work.”

Obama said:

The challenge we’ve got is very simple: Washington doesn’t work. It’s not as if we’ve got no good ideas on policy. We’ve got tons of them. I’ve got a drawer full of things that we know would create jobs, help our middle class, boost incomes, make us more competitive. But we have a party on the other side that has been captured by an ideology that says no to everything because they cling to a rigid theory that the only way to grow the economy is for government to be dismantled and let the market sort things out, and folks at the top doing very well will somehow automatically trickle down to everybody else.

Obama made his remarks during a fundraiser with investment banker Blair Effron and his wife Cheryl on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.