Q Tony, in the past, on important controversial issues, the administration has really worked the conservative base, reached out to them in advance, laid the groundwork. Do you, in hindsight, think the White House perhaps could have done better with that on this issue, seeing as how it was the conservative Republicans who were the ones predominantly who did not vote for this?

MR. FRATTO: Look, I know that yesterday afternoon erupted into, as only Washington can, a number of hours of great finger-pointing. You didn't see that coming from here. We're not going to engage in finger-pointing on this issue. What we're focused on is fixing the problem and trying to get it to a solution that can pass.

A lot of people may want to be critical of what we've done. We're dealing with a really unique challenge here. Unlike a lot of other policy issues, the way we talk about markets and things that the federal government will do with respect to markets has market outcomes. If you were watching 10 or 11 days ago, when just the rumor that we were going to have a proposal hit the markets, I think the Dow went up 300 points in an hour and a half in one afternoon.

So we have to be very, very careful about how we talk about the things that we're going to do that affect markets and the economy, and that's a constraining thing. We're also dealing with an incredibly complex issue -- not just in the solution and how it works, but also the problem. We spent a lot of time talking about -- talking about the problem and how it affects Americans in their daily lives, and it's a hard thing to do because there are four or five steps involved in that before you get to the kitchen table of the average American family and how it affects them.

So it is a challenge. We try to do it; I know all of you try to it, too, to deal with the complicated -- all of a sudden all of you are also financial news reporters now. Next week you might be foreign correspondents again on some other issue. So it's a challenge for everyone in terms of explaining it. And we try to do the best we can. We put the President out on national television with an address to the nation that was very well received. A lot of the members appreciated that. And we heard that people throughout the country appreciated hearing that explanation also.

So we're going to keep doing that. We obviously have more work to do, and I think we'll be able to do it.

seen at 09:00, 30 September in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
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