Obama's pessimism, Obama's challenge

[ProSense]

Obama's pessimism, Obama's challenge

What was most striking to me about Obama's presser just now was his surprisingly pessimistic tone: He openly conceded that there are going to be large areas where he and Repubicans won't be able to bridge fundamental ideological divides.

Sure, Obama made the obligatory noises about finding common ground, but quotes like this one signal that he knows how unlikely it is to actually happen:

What yesterday also told us is that no one party will be able to dictate where we go from here. We must find common ground in order to make progress on some uncommonly difficult challenges. I told John Boehner and Mitch McConnell last night that I am very eager to sit down with members of both parties and figure out how we can move forward together.

I'm not suggesting this will be easy. I won't pretend that we'll be able to bridge every difference or solve every disagreement. There's a reason we have two parties in this country, and both Democrats and Republicans have certain beliefs and principles that each feels cannot be compromised. But what I think the American people are expecting, and what we owe them, is to focus on those issues that effect their jobs, their security, and their future.

Judging by the questions asked at the presser, the elite media consensus, at least for now, is that yesterday's results place the burden for cooperation on the President more so than on the new GOP majority in the House. Obama seemed to be deliberately lowering expectations for the likelihood of meaningful bipartisan cooperation actually happening, by introducing the rather obvious reality check that the parties strongly disagree on the fundamentals.

More broadly, the bulk of the presser seemed to display the President feeling his way on a new and uncertain political landscape. His comments, which drew a line against repeal of health reform while signaling a willingness to tinker with the law, suggested he views the next two years through the prism of two core strategic questions:

First, with Republicans moving to roll back key chunks of his agenda, how does he draw a line against those efforts without allowing Repubicans to paint him as arrogant and deaf to the message of last night's results?

And second: How aggressively can he highlight the Republicans' refusal to compromise, and thus claim the moral high ground, without undercutting the impression -- one he clearly wants to feed -- that he's reaching out and trying to establish common ground with them?

It will be interesting to see how Obama, who is one of the most resilient and skilled public communicators and debaters of the last generation, adapts to this sudden new set of challenges.

[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[crazylikafox]

2. I hope he gets a good night's sleep & comes out fighting tomorrow...

[ProSense]

3. It's interesting

how different people hear different things. It's like the President held two different press conferences.

[ProSense]

4. Obama says results reflect frustration with pace of progress

Obama says results reflect frustration with pace of progress

by Jed Lewison

In contrast to Republican arguments that last night's election results show Americans want to undo everything Democrats have done over the last two years, President Obama in his post-election press conference made the case that the results reflect a frustration with the pace of progress. He argued that voters aren't looking for Congress to re-litigate the battles of the last two years (for example, by repealing health care reform); instead, he says voters want DC to work more effectively to boost job growth and expand the economy.

On specific policy questions, the biggest news from the press conference was that President Obama's top near-term priority is extending middle-class tax cuts during the lame duck session and that he planned to sit down with Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, the presumptive next Speaker John Boehner, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to get that done. Although he did not list tax cuts for the wealthy as a priority, he said he was open to negotiating to get the tax cuts passed, so that means that at least a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is on the table.

In other policy areas, Obama said he continued to support DADT repeal, but that he continues to believe it should be repealed by Congress, not the courts and not unilaterally by the administration. For the next Congress, he identified pursuing energy independence as a top overarching priority. And he said he'd like to work with Congress to end the current system of earmarking.

With respect to politics and his general approach towards Republicans, President Obama maintained his posture of hoping for and being open to compromise and working with the GOP. Although he didn't explicitly say he was confident the GOP would compromise, he did say his operating presumption was that the GOP would be willing to work with him. That of course doesn't guarantee that they will work with him, but it means that if they are willing to cooperate, so is he.

Reporters on several occasions tried to get President Obama to "admit" that the election results were a repudiation of everything Democrats have done in the last two years, but he rejected that notion, saying that in his view the overriding factor explaining the election was that the pace of progress hasn't been fast enough. He did concede that the process used to enact legislation wasn't ideal and probably frustrated some voters, and he did commit to being to changing it (for example, with earmarks) but he cast that as a procedural issue.

Here's a video of President Obama's opening statement:

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