‘Pretty friendly guy’ Obama says he’s wooed GOP lawmakers

[Geee]

The Hill:

President Obama claimed on Monday that he’s a “pretty friendly guy” who likes “a good party.”

He has great relationships with Republicans, he said, and enjoys lawmakers’ company.

Now that his daughters are getting older and don’t want to spend as much time with him, he’d “probably be calling around, looking for someone to play cards with me or something, because I’m getting kind of lonely in this big house ... So maybe a whole bunch of members of the House Republican caucus want to come over and socialize more.”

 

This response, to a reporter’s questions about whether he and his staff are too insular and don’t socialize enough, drew laughs, but partisans in both parties say it’s a serious issue, and that the president is unwilling to do the kind of schmoozing necessary to secure a big bipartisan deal.

It might be especially important for a president who, at the outset of his second term, promises to win legislative battles on gun control and immigration, plus fix the nation’s finances and entitlement programs.

Neera Tanden, a former aide to both Obama and former President Clinton, complained last year to New York magazine that Obama “doesn’t call anyone” because “he’s not close to almost anyone.”

“It’s stunning that he’s in politics, because he really doesn’t like people,” Tanden said in a remark for which she later apologized.