The Hill News

President Obama counseled supporters Wednesday evening "not to get too bogged down" in details when explaining his record to voters during the campaign.

The president, in a video conference with supporters last night from Chicago, encouraged his backers to focus on broad themes when it comes to his policies on taxes and war, instead of the specifics that undecided voters might find hard to engage.

"I think the key is not to get too bogged down in detail," the president said last night.

He used examples to drive his point home.

"if somebody asks about taxes, nobody is really interested in hearing what precise marginal tax rate change would you like to see in the tax code," Obama said. "What they want to know is that our campaign stands for a fair, just approach to the tax code that says everybody has to chip in, and that it’s not right if a hedge fund manager is being taxed at a lower rate than his or her secretary."
On Afghanistan and Iraq: "If somebody asks about the war, whether it’s Iraq or Afghanistan â€" if it’s Iraq, you have a pretty simple answer, which is all our folks are going to be out of there by the end of the year. If it’s Afghanistan, you can talk about, look, we think it’s time for us to transition to Afghan lead and rebuild here at home. So, again, it’s a values issue: Where are we prioritizing our resources?"

Obama said his campaign, led by Jeremy Bird, his national field director, would take the lead in ensuring that volunteers have good talking points to take out on the campaign trail. The president said his administration would also lay out new initiatives that would help his grassroots volunteers sell his record.

The president, himself a past community organizer, also said it wasn't so bad for volunteers to tell questioners that they don't know the answer.

"They don’t expect you to know the ins and outs of every s! ingle policy," Obama said. "But they do expect that you’re g! oing to treat them with courtesy and that you’re going to get back to them if you don’t know the answer to something."