So much for the bright, bold colors of hope and change. President Barack Obama admitted Thursday that his reelection campaign is more about gritty American realism.

At a Univision presidential forum in Florida on Thursday afternoon, Obama said the most important lesson he learned in office is that “you can’t change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside.”

The comment could seem like a striking reversal — or outright admission of failure — on one of Obama’s fundamental promises in his first campaign: If elected president, he would remake Washington.