I believe the President was making a comment about the political spectrum. If you look at issues and all the possibilities, both parties are indeed playing between the forty yard lines.
As obvious examples, both parties believe in the profit system that is the basis for the capitalist economy. The President has always stated that private enterprise is the employer of choice rather than advocate for major public works projects run by the government. The two parties only disagree with how much to tax corporate profits at both the corporate and individual rich owner level. The battle over whether to let the Bush tax cut expire a couple of years ago was positioned as a major defeat or major victory, depending on which party you support, but the reality was that it a very modest change either way in the real economy (i.e. between the forty yard lines). The current positions of both parties over raising the minimum wage is the same. Democrats support raising the minimum wage by a couple of bucks and the republicans oppose it. But the solution, even if the Democrats win, is that minimum wage workers will still earn much less than a minimum wage worker of 50 years ago. The minimum wage, if it was increased to just keep up with the increase in costs since the 1960s, would be about $23 an hour. A living wage would be higher, maybe $30 an hour. So, once again, instead of solving the real problem the two parties are playing between the forty yard lines and making it appear to be a VERY MAJOR difference.
I'm not advocating that the Red Army should overthrow the czar here. I'm just looking at our own past. There was a time when actually change was in play. A time when unions actually discussed how to gain (at least) partial ownership of the companies where they work and have a real say in wages, keeping factories open, hiring enough workers to avoid too mush overtimem etc. Germany and the Nordic countries have that. That would move past the forty yard line for sure. There was a time when people demanded a national health service like the NHS in England. The ACA is very much a between the forty yard line policy, no matter what the Republicans say. There was a time, not too long ago, when the Democratic Party platform called for a repeal of the Taft Hartley Act that prohibits any real union organizing and called for a national economic plan, i.e. a planned economy, to avoid the bust / bust cycle we continue to experience with regular frequency. Hubert Humphry was a big proponent of the national economic plan. Today both parties are visible supporters of the anarchy of the "free enterprise" system. There was a time when the anti-trust laws, the ones that are still in effect, were actually enforced to prohibit monopolies. Now we have companies that are "too big to fail" and both parties continue to support the policies that maintain the status quo. How many banksters that caused the economy to collapse in 2007/2008 are in jail today? None. That's because both parties support the status quo, somewhere between the forty yard lines.
I could provide dozens of examples, but it's clear that the President is correct - today's politics are all played between the forty yard lines.
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