"I'm sure there are many areas in which he would have liked to have done more, and there are many areas in which if he had some cooperation, he could have done more," said David Axelrod, Obama's longtime political strategist who served as a White House senior adviser. "But the disappointments don't go away even as you take satisfaction in your accomplishments. You have to accept that you're there for a short period of time in the big scheme of things, and you do as much as you can and then spend the rest of your life trying to make contributions in other ways."