President hits the road running

Jewel Samad | AFP
Supporters wait to catch a glimpse of US President Barack Obama’s motorcade near his house in Chicago on November 07, 2012. Mr Obama returned to Washington emboldened by his re-election but facing the daunting task of breaking down partisan gridlock in a bitterly divided Congress.

What you need to know:

  • We’re ready to be led – not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans, says House Speaker John Boehner after
    receiving a ‘brief and cordial’ phone call from Obama

WASHINGTON, Thursday

Newly re-elected, President Barack Obama, while still at home in Chicago, called Speaker John Boehner in what was described as a brief and cordial exchange on the need to reach some budget compromise in the lame-duck session of Congress starting next week.

Later at the Capitol, Mr Boehner responded before assembled reporters with his most explicit and conciliatory offer to date on Republicans’ willingness to raise tax revenues, but not top rates, as part of a spending cut package.

“Mr President, this is your moment,” said Mr Boehner, a day after congressional Republicans suffered election losses but kept their House majority.

“We’re ready to be led – not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans. We want you to lead, not as a liberal or a conservative, but as president of the United States of America.”

His statement came a few hours after Senator Harry Reid, leader of a Democratic Senate majority that made unexpected gains, extended his own olive branch to the opposition.

While saying that Democrats would not be pushed around, Mr Reid, a former boxer, added, “It’s better to dance than to fight.”

Both men’s remarks followed Mr Obama’s own overture in his victory speech after midnight on Wednesday.

“In the coming weeks and months,” he said, “I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together: reducing our deficit, reforming our tax code, fixing our immigration system, freeing ourselves from foreign oil.”

After his speech, Mr Obama tried to call both Mr Boehner and the Senate Republican leader, Mr Mitch McConnell, but was told they were asleep.

The efforts from both sides, after a long and exhausting campaign, suggested the urgency of acting in the few weeks before roughly $700 billion in automatic tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts take effect at year’s end – the so-called fiscal cliff.

Meanwhile, at the White House, Mr Obama prepared to shake up his staff to help him tackle daunting economic and international challenges.

He will study lists of candidates for various positions that a senior adviser, Pete Rouse, assembled in recent weeks as Obama crisscrossed the country campaigning.

Prominent members of his Cabinet will leave soon. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner long ago said they would depart after the first term, and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, previously the head of the CIA, has signalled that he wants to return to California sometime in the coming year.

Also expected to depart is David Plouffe, one of the president’s closest confidants.

Mr Obama is expected to reshuffle both his inner circle and his economic team.

For example, Jacob J. Lew, Mr Obama’s current White House chief of staff and former budget director, is said to be a prime candidate to become Treasury secretary.

For the foreseeable future, the holder of that job is likely to be at the center of budget negotiations, and Mr Lew has experience in such bargaining dating to his work as a senior adviser to congressional Democrats 30 years ago in bipartisan talks with President Ronald Reagan.

Both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush ended up replacing about half of their Cabinet members between terms, and Mr Obama could end up doing about the same, especially since his team has served through wars and economic crises. (New York Times)