President Obama's Top Political Adviser Said 'No Regrets' After President's First Year in Office

Jan. 24, 2010 — -- President Obama's top political adviser David Axelrod said the result of the Massachusetts Senate special election shows that "it's very clear people don't want us to walk away from health care."

Appearing on "This Week," Axelrod said a poll in yesterday's Washington Post showed that voters in Massachusetts want Sen.-elect Scott Brown "to come and work with us and not be obstructionist."

House and Senate Democrats are scrambling to figure out how to pick up the pieces of health care reform legislation after Republican Scott Brown's victory last Tuesday. Brown will soon take the Senate seat that the late Ted Kennedy held for 46 years.

Democrats have been sending a mixed message about how to proceed on health care reform in the wake of the election. Some Democrats, such as Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, have called for a "pause" while turning their attention to jobs. Others argue that Democrats should press ahead.

This weekend Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met to try to figure out how to salvage the effort. Axelrod sent his own warning to wavering Democrats. "As a political matter," he told "This Week," "the foolish thing to do would be for anybody else who supported this to walk away from it because what's happened is, this thing's been defined by insurance company -- insurance industry propaganda, the propaganda of the opponents and an admittedly messy process leading up to it."

Axelrod said voter angst a year after Obama took office was expected.

"I said to him a year ago, 'Mr. President, your numbers are going to be considerably worse a year from now than they are today, because you can't govern in an economy like this without great disaffection,' and that's -- and that's what's happened."