WASHINGTON — After a stinging rebuke at the polls, President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday to respond to the frustrations of the American electorate by using his final two years to forge compromises with newly empowered congressional Republicans and break the political gridlock.
“I hear you,” Obama said at a White House news conference, a day after voters gave the GOP unilateral control over the legislative branch and dealt a blow to Obama’s agenda after six years in office.
“Obviously, Republicans had a good night, and they deserve credit for running good campaigns,” Obama said.
But he emphasized that there was a message for both parties in the results — and the two more years of divided government they will produce: “The American people … expect the people they elect to work as hard as they do. They expect us to focus on their ambitions and not ours. They want us to get the job done. All of us in both parties have a responsibility to address that sentiment.”
Despite his nod to shared responsibility, however, Obama sounded less introspective and remorseful in the wake of the Democrats’ midterm election defeat this year than he did four years ago, when he described the outcome as a “shellacking” for Democrats.
The president noted that two-thirds of those eligible did not vote Tuesday, suggesting the lack of a broad GOP mandate, and he reminded reporters that the policies he has championed, including an increase in the minimum wage, were endorsed by voters in multiple states.
Obama pledged to work with his rivals on areas including taxes, infrastructure and trade. The hopeful notes he sounded were matched by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whose re-election puts him in line to become majority leader next year.
The president called McConnell on Wednesday to congratulate him on his victory and discuss areas of common ground.
“I would enjoy having some Kentucky bourbon with Mitch McConnell,” said Obama, who once joked at a black-tie dinner that the Kentucky senator wouldn’t be much of a drinking buddy.
“We’ll see whether we can work with the president. I hope so,” McConnell said at a news conference in Kentucky. “We’re going to pass legislation. Some of it he may not like, but this gridlock and dysfunction can be ended.”
Even as both sides suggested an openess to new cooperation, there are several immediate stumbling blocks, including potential White House action on immigration, the ongoing standoff over the stalled Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline and Obama’s appointment of a new attorney general. All have the potential to reignite the toxic political environment before McConnell takes the Senate gavel.
The question for Obama is whether he feels the rout of Democrats constrains or liberates him. Inside the West Wing, presidential advisers said the election results could give the president greater latitude to act unilaterally on immigration because the GOP can pursue their own immigration bill if they do not like it.
Obama also made clear that he would resist any efforts by his opponents to undercut his landmark policies on health care and the environment.
And McConnell acknowledged that Obama remains “a player” even as Republicans pursue their own initiatives.
“The veto pen is a pretty powerful tool,” McConnell said.
He urged Obama to follow the leads of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, “who are good examples of accepting the government you have rather than fantasizing about the government you think you have.”
The poor showing has led some Obama allies to call for a shake-up of the White House staff, but Obama and White House press secretary Josh Earnest played down the idea of a major staff overhaul.
Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., said that the responsibility for the Democrats’ trouncing “started at the White House and this administration, and it went all the way to leadership. … I think that people felt that the Democrats didn’t work, did not reach out, basically played politics all the way through.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
