President Barack Obama waits to be introduced to speak at an event honouring National Mentoring Month at the White House. Photo: AP
CHASTENED and bruised, US President Barack Obama has started trying to turn around his presidency in a drastically altered political environment that will test his leadership, his instincts and his political dexterity as never before.
With the loss of his party's unilateral control of the Senate, Mr Obama acknowledged the deep public anger on display in Tuesday's Massachusetts election, offering limited regrets for losing touch and signalling that he may scale back some of the sweeping ambitions he brought into office a year ago.
On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders said they were weighing several options for Mr Obama's proposed health care overhaul. But some politicians in both parties began calling for a scaled-back bill that could be adopted quickly with bipartisan support, and Mr Obama seemed to suggest that if he could not pass an ambitious health care bill, he would be willing to settle for what he could get.
In an interview with the American ABC network, he cited two specific goals: cracking down on insurance industry practices that hurt consumers, and reining in health costs.
Republican congressional aides said a compromise bill could include new insurance industry regulations, including a ban on denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions, as well as aid for small businesses for health costs and possible steps to restrict malpractice lawsuits.
But as Mr Obama said on ABC, a pared-down package imposing restrictions on insurers might make coverage unaffordable, which is one reason he prefers an overhaul.
Mr Obama and his advisers were still reeling from the Republican victory in Democrat stalwart Ted Kennedy's seat that cost them the filibuster-proof majority they had used to advance Mr Obama's priorities.
Mr Obama indicated he would not give up his signature health care initiative but suggested paring it down to its ''core elements''. He maintained that he had heard the message of the Massachusetts election but cast it as an echo of the public discontent that vaulted him to the White House.
''Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,'' Mr Obama said.
''People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two … but what's happened over the last eight years.''
That, of course, was a way of putting at least some of the blame on his predecessor, George Bush.
Mr Obama added: ''If there's one thing that I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises … that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values. And that I do think is a mistake of mine.''
The President alluded to his reputation for emotional distance from voters suffering from a troubled economy. ''What they've ended up seeing is this feeling of remoteness and detachment where … there's these technocrats up here, these folks who are making decisions,'' he said.
Obama Administration officials said Mr Obama would put more emphasis on issues such as deficit reduction and job creation. He was already assembling a bipartisan budget commission and officials acknowledged that some proposals - such as a market-based cap on greenhouse gas emissions and liberalised immigration rules - would probably now take a back seat.
White House aides said Mr Obama would use his State of the Union address next Wednesday to reframe his record and aspirations.
NEW YORK TIMES
