Obama says race not the main reason for criticism

President Obama wanted to talk about his health care proposals, but in the early excerpts released of the five interviews he taped today for broadcast Sunday, race was the focus.

Obama was asked about former President Jimmy Carter's assertion this week that much of the most vociferous opposition to the president is based on racism. Republicans slammed Carter, saying that the criticism is over his policies on health care and other issues, not race.

"Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? I’m sure there are,” Obama said on CNN. “That’s not the overriding issue here.”

“I think there are people who are anti-government,” Obama continued. “I think there’s been a longstanding debate in this country -- that is usually that much more fierce during times of transition or when presidents are trying to bring about big changes. The things that were said about FDR were pretty similar to the things that were said about me. He was a Communist. He was a socialist. Things that were said about Ronald Reagan when he was trying to reverse some of the New Deal programs were pretty vicious as well.”

In his interview with ABC, the nation's first black president also made the argument that the dispute is really over the role of government.

"Look I think that race is such a volatile issue in this society, always has been that, it becomes hard for people to separate out race being a sort of part of the backdrop of American society versus race being a predominant factor in any given debate. And what I’ve said, when we talked during the campaign, Are there some people who don’t like me because of my race? I’m sure there are. Are there some people who voted for me only because of my race? There are probably some of those too.

"The overwhelming part of the American population, I think, is right now following this debate and they are trying to figure out, 'Is this gonna help me? Is health care going to make me better off?' Now there are some who are, setting aside the issue of race, actually I think are more passionate about the idea of whether government can do anything right. And I think that that’s probably the biggest driver of some of the vitriol."

He also did interviews with CBS, NBC, and Univision.