More from the Rolling Stone interview. President Obama chides frustrated and/or apathetic progressives who are considering staying home in November. He calls his administration “the most successful. . . in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward,” and warns that should progressives fail to mobilize for the midterms it would “tell. . .me folks weren’t serious in the first place.”

“It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we’ve got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.
“The idea that we’ve got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible…It has been hard, and we’ve got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.”

Obama also said he had kept “70 percent” of his campaign promises, and had “two years left to finish the rest of the list, at minimum.”

“I keep in my pocket a checklist of the promises I made during the campaign, and here I am, halfway through my first term, and we’ve probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do — and by the way, I’ve got two years left to finish the rest of the list, at minimum.”