Obama: Change Takes Time

CINCINNATI -- In a rare a moment on the campaign trail these days, a voter challenged Barack Obama about how he would bring about the change he's promised.

At a roundtable on pension security, Colleen Munninghoff, 48, told Obama that this is the first time since she turned 18 that she was undecided.

"I understand that the younger kids are getting on the Obama bandwagon and that's great …"

Obama cut her off, saying, "We've actually been doing pretty well among more experienced voters as well."

He launched into a long explanation of how he and Hillary Clinton were not all that different in terms of their policy positions, but he said only he has the ability to build a coalition of Republicans and Independents to get the job done.

And then in a candid moment unlike most on the trail these days as he promises grand change to enthusiastic crowds that number in the thousands, he admitted just how hard it will be to get everything done.

"I'll be honest with you we've dug ourselves into a hole, and it's going to take some time to get out," he said. "The question is are we going to make sure that the price that has to be paid to dig ourselves out of the hole is not borne by you guys at this table."

Munninghoff then asked Obama if she could "hope that any of these policies will be implanted in time to help me."

Obama said that change was at least "two or three years away."

(NBC/NJ's ASWINI ANBURAJAN)

"Well look," Obama said. "If I'm elected I won't be sworn in until January 2009. And then let's take the example of healthcare. My goal is to have the bill passed by the end of 2009, but we're still gonna have two or three years. Same with changing the tax code. So we're looking at two or three years away, and frankly we're going to have to figure out where the economy is at because the next president is going to inherit a mess. The president has put us in a deficit. We've got four trillion dollars of debt more than we have when he took office. All those veterans who are coming home are going to have to be cared for."

He added, "My goal is in my first term is to get us on the right track."

He went on to say that if he held more roundtables like this and members of Congress paid attention they would see that there were real problems out there, and Democrats weren't all "doom and gloom" for no reason.

The acknowledgment of the time line, the need to take the national temperature on the economy, is something that Obama has not mentioned before, even after months in Iowa.

For her part, Munninghoff told NBC/NJ that Obama's answer had "put her at ease" though she still wasn't sure about who to vote for and would be watching the debate. However, several hours later when she was contacted by the Associated Press, Munninghoff said that Obama had won her vote.