Republicans and President Barack Obama have got to stop meeting like this (says Rush Limbaugh most likely): a second “date” has been set between Obama and Republican Senators:
President Barack Obama will continue his congressional charm offensive at a second dinner with Senate Republicans next month.
The April 10 dinner will include a dozen GOP members invited by Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Republican aides said Wednesday. The location is yet to be determined.
A White House spokeswoman said Obama would attend the dinner.
In an interview with POLITICO, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) praised the president’s outreach efforts.
“I told him … those small dinners were a good thing and he could go have all the members down, including the people who are the least likely to be inclined to do anything,” McConnell said.
Obama has been trying to court GOP senators outside of the leadership, but McConnell said he didn’t need to be a dining partner with the president because he sees him “all the time.”
Asked if he were worried that his rank-and-file may buck his leadership team on a deficit package with the White House, McConnell said: “I’m not threatened by that. … That’s pretty safe to say.”
No matter what, the two sides meeting with each other is not a bad thing. If knocks just one of those many partisan chips off politicos shoulders in discussion the p-r-b-l-e-m-s American needs fixed it’s (small) progress.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.