With a bit more than two years left in Barack Obama’s presidency, the debate has officially begun over his legacy. To hear Washington pundits tell it, it’s not shaping up as a good one. But Jim Messina, White House deputy chief of staff in Obama’s first term, tells OZY co-founder and CEO Carlos Watson that history will be much, much kinder to America’s 44th president than today’s pundits are.

Of course, as Obama’s former campaign manager, Messina is biased. Then again, he’s been around politics a long time (in school, he wrote an essay about wanting to be a presidential campaign manager — done). Now Messina insists the Obama legacy is clear, and it has to do with a little law known as Obamacare. The Supreme Court might have something to say about that next year, when it considers striking down a key provision of the law. 

Video by Tom Gorman. Tom is an OZY video producer.

This OZY encore was originally published Nov. 16, 2014.