Obama Vows to Cooperate, Within Limits

Washington: President Barack Obama, shaking off an electoral drubbing that cost his party its Senate majority, said Wednesday that he was eager to work with Republicans to find common ground during the final two years of his presidency, even as he promised to go through with unilateral action on immigration over strong Republican objections.

"The American people overwhelmingly believe that this town doesn't work well," Obama said in a news conference in the East Room of the White House, in which he declined to "read the tea leaves" of the election or say whether he deserved blame for its outcome. "As president, they rightly hold me accountable to make it work better."

That was as close as Obama came to accepting responsibility for the punishing results on Tuesday during an exchange with reporters in which he was relentlessly upbeat.

"It doesn't make me mopey, it energizes me," Obama said. As if to underline his forward-looking approach, he opened the session by calling for immediate action by Congress on a request for emergency funding to combat Ebola and a measure to authorize military action against the terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State.

The president also said he was willing to compromise with Republicans on trade, corporate tax reform and infrastructure spending, and promised to reach out to the leaders of the rival party.

"If the ways that we're approaching the Republicans in Congress isn't working, you know, I'm going to try different things, whether it's having a drink with Mitch McConnell or letting John Boehner beat me again at golf," the president said with a laugh.

But minutes after McConnell said in his own news conference that executive action on immigration this year would poison the well for bipartisan cooperation during the remainder of Obama's term, the president vowed that he would not back down from his promise to act on his own to overhaul the immigration system.

"What I'm not going to do is just wait," he said, adding that "the American people sent a message - one that they've sent for several elections now. They expect the people they elect to work as hard as they do."

In his news conference in Louisville, Kentucky, McConnell - who is likely to lead the new Republican majority in the Senate next year - vowed a spirit of cooperation and compromise with Obama even as he cautioned that a more starkly divided government in Washington would inevitably lead to sharp partisan disagreements.

"When the American people choose divided government, I don't think it means they don't want us to do anything," McConnell told reporters in his first news conference since his party trounced Democrats in Tuesday's elections. "We ought to start with the view that maybe there are some things we can agree on to make progress for the country."

McConnell largely sidestepped the most divisive issues that are likely to create conflict between his members and Obama. And he played down ideological differences among his own members that might disrupt any efforts to compromise with the president.

But he promised to make the Senate "work again" by changing the rules in the chamber. And he flatly promised that Congress would not shut down the government or default on the national debt in disputes about the nation's finances.

The Republican leader said Obama called him Wednesday and discussed issues that might form the basis of a common agenda, including work on trade deals that Republican lawmakers strongly support. He described his relationship with Obama as "cordial" in the past several years.

"There's not a personality problem here or anything like that," McConnell said.

But McConnell also acknowledged that there would be issues that divide the parties and he signaled that some of those were likely to generate the kind of tension in Washington that voters despise.
"We will certainly be voting on things as well that we think the administration is not fond of," he said.

The full magnitude of the Republican Party's success in reshaping the national political landscape at Obama's expense became clearer Wednesday as the party seemed headed toward an even longer list of electoral victories in Senate and governor races that had been too close to call.

In Alaska, the winner of the Senate race remained uncertain Wednesday, though the Republican candidate, Dan Sullivan, moved into a small lead in the vote count and appeared poised to oust Sen.

Mark Begich, a Democrat. A victory by Sullivan would further whittle away Obama's support in a Senate that has served as the president's bulwark in Congress against the Republican-controlled House.

If Sullivan wins and Republicans succeed in ousting Sen. Mary L. Landrieu in Louisiana in a runoff election next month, Republicans would command a 54-vote majority in the Senate - a gain of nine seats and an almost complete turnaround from the current chamber, where Democrats control 55 seats.

In Virginia, Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, was slightly ahead in the vote count in his bid for re-election, but his Republican challenger, Ed Gillespie, a former lobbyist and Republican political adviser, was within less than a percentage point and could request a recount in that state.

Republican candidates for governor in Maryland, Maine and Massachusetts also claimed victories over Democratic opponents in states that by all accounts should have been bright spots for the president and his allies in an otherwise dismal election season.

In Colorado, Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, narrowly clinched a second term early Wednesday, fending off an unexpectedly tough challenge from a Republican congressman who accused the governor of yanking Colorado too far left on gun control, energy and taxes.

In Connecticut, a bitter race for governor ended Wednesday when Thomas C. Foley, the Republican challenger, conceded in an email to supporters, handing victory to the incumbent, Dannel P. Malloy.

"Governors get things done. That's what the country wants," Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said on the "Today" show on NBC on Wednesday. Christie dodged questions about his own presidential ambitions, saying that "today is a day to celebrate what my fellow governors have done."

By Wednesday afternoon, it appeared that Republicans were on the verge of picking up 15 additional seats and possibly a few more - gains that would give them their largest majority since the World War II era.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore. and the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the results were a referendum on the president's policies, but sounded a note of caution to Republicans who might be tempted to follow the same no-compromise path the party took after 2010.

"There's a broad understanding that we have to perform," Walden said in an interview Wednesday. "We caught the bus; we need to drive the bus responsibly. And if we do, we can build on our gains in 2016."

White House officials said Obama talked to dozens of the winners Tuesday night by telephone, calling several Democratic allies and many of the newly elected Republican governors and senators to congratulate them.

Among the candidates the president reached were Tom Cotton, the Republican who defeated Mark Pryor in Arkansas; Shelley Moore Capito, the new Republican senator in West Virginia; Asa Hutchinson, who won his race to be the governor of Arkansas; and Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Republican who won re-election in South Carolina.

In the call with Graham, which the president placed around 10 p.m., Obama talked about areas in which the two parties might work together, including on finding ways to improve infrastructure around the country, according to Graham. The two talked for about 20 minutes, he said.

Graham said Obama had suggested that "our standing in the world would be enhanced if we showed people outside the country we could get stuff done."

The president's theory, Graham said, is that working on small- and medium-size goals could give them momentum. "Momentum in one area creates opportunities in other areas," Graham recalled him saying.

Graham also said the president had told him he knew his sixth year would be tough because "people get tired of ya."

Vice President Joe Biden also called Graham. The two men, who have been friends for years, talked for about an hour - a short call for "Joe," Graham said. As for the election: "Joe saw it coming more than Obama," Graham said.

The Democratic losses were even larger than top White House aides had feared they might be, and appeared likely to require a rethinking by the president of how he governs during the final two years of a second term that has already been marked by discord and gridlock with the Republican Party.

The results are an immediate blow to the administration's hopes to further broaden the president's health care law by expanding Medicaid in additional states. Some of those states will now be controlled by Republican governors who are unlikely to agree to an expansion of the health care law.

White House aides are bracing for calls from both parties for Obama to cancel or postpone plans to announce executive actions that would reshape the nation's immigration laws and provide the legal authority for millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the country.

Obama promised to unveil his plans soon after the congressional elections, and aides signaled that he was unlikely to back down from that promise.