President Barack Obama during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 5, 2014.DOUG MILLS/The New York Times
Confronted with a stark new political reality, President Barack Obama sounded conciliatory Wednesday after voters delivered a drubbing to his Democratic Party and put Republicans solidly in control of both houses of Congress.
"I would enjoy having some Kentucky bourbon with Mitch McConnell," Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference, referring to the Republican who is set to be the new Senate majority leader. Tellingly, Mr. Obama added: "I don't know what his preferred drink is."
Sen. McConnell's office says the veteran lawmaker, one of the party's top leaders, has only met privately once or twice with the President since he was elected.
On the day after the midterm elections, both men were piously promising a willingness to engage in a new era of working together. That they remain strangers six years after Mr. Obama became President illustrates the personal dimension of Washington's deep partisan estrangement.
There is little to suggest the antipathy and partisan paralysis that has gripped the capital for years would be changed by the outcome of Tuesday's vote.
In Kentucky, Mr. McConnell nonetheless suggested trade and tax reform as possible areas of compromise. In Washington, the President talked of tax reform and rebuilding the United States' infrastructure.
"The Republicans had a good night," Mr. Obama admitted, although he didn't seem chastened despite his long-standing claims that while he wasn't on the ballot, his policies were. "To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you."
Still, he suggested the voters' message wasn't directed just at him or his party, despite the scale of Democratic losses.
"The American people sent a message, they expect the people they elect to work as hard as they do [and] they want us to get the job done … all of us from both parties," Mr. Obama said.
Republicans, widely decried as the "party of No" by their detractors, insisted the years of gridlock have been caused by Democratic control of the Senate, which rarely dealt with any of the more than 300 bills passed by the Republican House of Representatives.
"Gridlock and dysfunction can be ended," Mr. McConnell said, challenging Mr. Obama to make the sort of wide-ranging compromises that previous presidents, including Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, had fashioned with Congresses controlled by the opposite party.
"Divided government is not a reason to do nothing," Mr. McConnell said.
The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was similarly low-key and conciliatory. "This is not a time for celebration," the Ohio Republican said. "It's time for government to start getting results and implementing solutions to the challenges facing our country."
Mr. McConnell made clear that he wanted no repeat of the Tea Party-driven confrontations. "There will be no government shutdown or default on the national debt," he said. But he also delivered an unmistakable warning to Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly threatened to work around Congress on immigration reform and curbing greenhouse gas emissions unless he gets his way.
"It's like waving a red flag in front of a bull to say if you guys don't do what I want I'm going to do it on my own," he said.
Mr. McConnell also served notice that the Republican-controlled Congress was going to pass legislation that would change key elements of Obamacare, as the President's controversial health care system is called.
"It's no secret that every one of my members thinks Obamacare was a huge mistake," he said. Less than an hour later, at his own postelection news conference in the White House, the President vowed to veto any legislation that undermined the fundamental elements of Obamacare.
Both sides seem determined to signal a willingness to co-operate even as they laid down lines they wouldn't cross.
"Congress will pass some bills I cannot sign. I'm pretty sure I will take some actions that some in Congress will not like," Mr. Obama, who now faces his last two years in the White House dealing with a Congress solidly in Republican control.
Despite the low-key professions of a willingness to work together, the victorious Republicans couldn't resist touting the election as a sweeping repudiation of Mr. Obama and his policies.
Alberta-born Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Tea Party favourite and likely presidential contender in 2016, said Mr. Obama's "policies were on the ballot and the voters spoke loud and clear. Obamacare was on the ballot, it lost. Amnesty [for undocumented immigrants] was on the ballot, it lost. The Obama economy was on the ballot, it lost. The Obama-Clinton foreign policy was on the ballot, it lost."
Another likely Republican 2016 contender, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, said widespread voter rejection of Democratic candidates was a "reflection of the President's lack of leadership, his lack of leadership abroad, his lack of leadership at home."
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and another potential 2016 presidential candidate, warned of legislative warfare. "We will send the President bill after bill until he wearies of it."