Obama lays out vision to improve “poisonous” political environment

“It’s gotten worse”, he said bluntly in an address to the Illinois General Assembly, on the anniversary of his entry into presidential politics.

“He came by and slapped me on the back and said, ‘Kid, that was a pretty good speech”.

“See, I didn’t want this to be like a State of the Union speech where we have one side standing up and the other sitting down”, Obama said. “We’ve got to build a better politics, one that’s less of a spectacle and more of a battle of ideas, one that’s less of a business and more of a mission, one that understands the success of the American experiment rests on our willingness to engage all our citizens in this work”.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin stood with Obama in Springfield when he announced his historic run for president.

The first time President Obama won office was in 1996, when he was elected to the Illinois Senate. “We should insist on a higher form of political discourse”.

Obama launched his speech with memories of his time in Springfield where he said he arrived as a lawmaker “passionate, idealistic (and) ready to make a difference”, but one who “needed a little dose of reality”.

In his remarks Wednesday, the IL native acknowledged that much has changed in nine years – but expressed disappointment that the political landscape in Washington has not.

For the rest of his previous year – and when he’s out of office, President Barack Obama is determined to grapple with his major failure, changing the tone of politics.

“What’s different today is the nature and extent of the polarization”, Obama said, citing political parties that have become more homogeneous in their ideology, a fractured media, advocacy groups and “unlimited dark money”. “Illinois Democrats have turned our state into a fiscal basket case”, he said.

“Even since Barack Obama was in the Illinois Legislature, the arrival of smart phones, and social media, of cable talk shows, and he mentioned this, it just fuels this incivility, this name calling”.

“We can’t move forward if all we do is tear each other down”, the president said.

Obama continued his Springfield nostalgia tour with another address this afternoon, this time to a packed house of volunteers and supporters at the Hoagland Arts Center, where banners bearing his famous campaign slogan “Yes!” While the president didn’t address the IL budget impasse directly, he did take aim at the war of words between Republicans and Democrats nationwide, saying the deepening divide has created a “poisonous political climate that pushes people away from participating”.

IL is in its eighth month without a budget, and lawmakers hope the speech will help them find middle ground.

IL lawmakers are excited to welcome President Obama to the state’s capitol Wednesday.