Video - 1998 ‘Redistribution’ Speech: Obama Saw Welfare Recipients As ‘Majority Coalition’.

Obama is also heard lamenting Americans’ distrust of “government action”; identifying his political opponents - that is, Republicans - as “the bad guys”; declaring his support for labor unions and community organizers; endorsing the public financing of political campaigns; and staking out liberal positions on gun control, government-run health care and welfare reform. Many of those positions, he conceded, had “no chance of seeing the light of day in Springfield” - the Illinois state capital - “or in Washington.” It’s unclear if NBC News had a complete recorded copy including Obama’s unedited remarks. “I think that what we’re gonna have to do is somehow resuscitate the notion that government action can be effective at all,” he told an audience that reportedly consisted of some 400 people. “There has been a systematic - I don’t think it’s too strong to call it a propaganda campaign - against the possibility of government action and its efficacy,” he said. “And I think some of it has been deserved. The Chicago Housing Authority has not been a model of good policymaking. And neither, necessarily, has been the Chicago public schools.” “What that means, then is that as we try to resuscitate this notion that we’re all in this thing together - ‘leave nobody behind’ - we do have to be innovative in thinking.’What are the delivery systems that are actually effective and meet people where they live?’” he said. It was at this point that Obama launched into his now-famous line about constructing government systems that redistribute wealth. The full recording reveals that Obama saw welfare recipients and the working poor in Chicago as a “majority coalition” who could be leveraged politically. “What I think will re-engage people in politics is if we’re doing significant, serious policy work around what I will label the ‘working poor,’” he said, “although my definition of the working poor is not simply folks making minimum wage, but it’s also families of four who are making $30,000 a year.” “They are struggling. And to the extent that we are doing research figuring out what kinds of government action would successfully make their lives better, we are then putting together a potential majority coalition to move those agendas forward.”Read the full story here.