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[交流] 【Pure water】Obama Invites Republican Leaders to Dinner

In the aftermath of this week’s electoral “shellacking,” President Obama on Thursday invited Congressional leaders to literally break bread later this month at a dinner at the White House as he tries to adjust to a new political order with Republicans ascendant.

Mr. Obama invited eight leaders of both parties to meet on Nov. 18 and then share a meal in the residence part of the White House. He hopes to use the get-together to start afresh after two years of partisan warfare leading to an election that vaulted Republicans to power in the House and strengthened their numbers in the Senate.

“This is going to be a meeting in which I want us to talk substantively about how we can move the American people’s agenda forward,” Mr. Obama told reporters after a Cabinet meeting.

Mr. Obama also invited the nation’s newly elected governors to visit the White House later this month after Republicans captured many new statehouses. And the White House is working to set up a meeting with corporate chief executives to smooth over fractious relations with the business community.

The president said voters on Tuesday indicated they want a change of tone in Washington and attention to not wasting taxpayer money. “We have to take that message to heart and make a sincere and consistent effort to try to change how Washington operates,” he said.

He also used the moment to urge the Senate to approve the New Start arms control treaty during the lame-duck session that opens Nov. 15. The White House is concerned that waiting until a new Senate takes office with at least six more Republicans in January, it could jeopardize chances for ratifying the treaty or at least delay it for many more months, leaving the two countries without nuclear weapons monitoring inspections.

“This is not a traditionally Democratic or Republican issue, but rather an issue of American national security,” Mr. Obama said. “I am hopeful that we can get that done before we leave and send a strong signal to Russia that we are serious about reducing nuclear arsenals, but also sending a signal to the world that we’re serious about nonproliferation.”

The meeting with Congressional leaders will take place after the president returns from a trip to Asia that begins on Friday. He is tentatively scheduled to leave town again within hours of the Congressional dinner to head to a NATO summit in Lisbon.

Mr. Obama tried inviting Republicans to social events early in his presidency to forge working relationships but largely gave up after the other party opposed his major initiatives. In his State of the Union address this year, he renewed the outreach, vowing to meet with Congressional leaders of both parties once a month, but those meetings eventually trickled off later in the year.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said this month’s meeting and dinner would start a new era of such sessions. “This is the first of many,” he said.

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