Dewey,
Obama won the 2008 election with only 52.9% of the popular vote. His way higher number of electoral votes only once again exposes the flaw in the system, imho. Just look at the 2000 election with Bush taking it with less popular vote than Gore.
I agree, this problem is bigger than one man and unless he is willing to start making some hard choices, he's not going to fix it anytime soon.
One thing the general public has to realize is these guys, all of them, their number one mandate is to get re-elected. Period. To get them to stray from that will be a difficult battle. And with only 53% of the vote, Obama is walking on eggshells a bit.