President Obama went back to a familiar excuse for why things went south for him and his party in an interview with Face the Nation Sunday.
"When you start governing, there is a tendency sometimes for me to start thinking as long as I get the policy right, then that's what should matter," Obama said.
"It’s not enough just to build the better mousetrap. People don’t automatically come beating to your door. We've got to sell it.
"We’ve got to reach out to the other side and, where possible, persuade. I think there are times, there’s no doubt about it where I think we have not been successful in going out there and letting people know what it is that we’re trying to do and why this is the right direction. So there is a failure of politics that we have to improve on."
It again comes down to messaging for Obama. In 2010, the day after his other shellacking in the midterms, Obama still thought he hadn't properly explained his accomplishments.
"Sometimes we lose track of the ways that we connected with folks that got us here in the first place," Obama said.
In 2012, asked by Charlie Rose about his biggest mistake as president, Obama said he hadn't done a good job of telling "a story to the American people."
Rather, he's fond of saying it's a matter of him being too focused on "getting the policy right" and not "advertising properly," as he said about the economic recovery in 2010. When people were upset last year about losing their insurance plans under Obamacare, he told Chuck Todd that "we weren't as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place."
Then again, Obama dislikes the whole theater of politics and has never been too adept at it.