House Republican leaders gathered in Baltimore's Renaissance Harborplace Hotel this weekend for their annual retreat. At center stage was Friday's lunchtime address by President Obama to GOP representatives, followed by a question-and-answer session in which House Republicans questioned the president's positions and actions on health care reform, reducing the deficit, climate legislation and job creation.
While the dialogue between Obama and House Republicans maintained a degree of decorum, as the conversation progressed, the frank conversation grew more candid, even becoming a bit heated at times as GOP leaders went back and forth with the president over his policies and the behavior of his Democratic colleagues in Congress.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., speaking directly to Obama, emphasized that Republicans in the House have ideas on issues ranging from health care to job creation, but noted that they receive inadequate recognition for contributing to the general political discussion.
"If those ideas aren't getting to you, maybe it's your Democratic leadership in Congress acting as an impediment, not a conduit," said Blackburn.
Obama countered, acknowledging that he and the Democratic Party are "absolutely committed to working [with Republicans] on these solutions," while also demanding that the debate not be based solely on "political assertions."
The appearance by Obama at the GOP retreat was not unusual. During their respective tenures, past presidents have had similar meetings with the opposing party. But the televised question-and-answer session between President Obama and Republican lawmakers was unprecedented; after a phone call late Thursday night from the White House, House GOP leaders agreed to televise the back-and-forth session, which lasted roughly an hour and 30 minutes.
"House Republican leaders are grateful to the president for being willing to come [and speak] in a freewheeling environment," said Indiana Representative and House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence. "We welcome the dialogue with the president."
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R.-Ohio, kicked off the session, presenting Obama with a 27-page "Better Solutions" booklet, which includes GOP alternatives to administration policies regarding health care reform, energy and national security, in addition to several others.After the president's brief opening remarks, Pence played the part of moderator, selecting 12 of the 178 House Republicans in the room to ask Obama questions on topics ranging from the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law February 2009, to the president's willingness to prod Democratic leaders into embracing a line-item veto proposal, to why the health care negotiations hadn't been aired live on C-SPAN.
And while the discussion remained civil, the pent-up frustration in Obama and the GOP representatives became increasingly more visible as time elapsed.
At one point, after fielding a long-winded question from Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas - which Obama interrupted, asking, "I know there's a question in there somewhere, because you're making a whole bunch of assertions, half of which I disagree with, and I'm having to sit here listening to them. At some point I know you're going to let me answer?" - the president replied, "I've just got to take this last question as an example of how it's very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we're going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign."
Tensions from the Republican side flared as well. While debating the merits of their parties' opposing pieces of health care legislation, Obama told Dr. Tom Price, R-Ga., that while he is committed to working with Republicans, any policy talk "can't just be political assertions that aren't substantiated when it comes to the actual details of policy," to which Pence shot back, ". . . Rest assured the summary document you received ["Better Solutions"] is backed up by precisely the kind of detailed legislation that [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] and your administration have been busy ignoring for 12 months."
Overall, the GOP leadership in the House deemed the event a success.
Boehner acknowledged that "there are issues and items that we do agree on," saying that bipartisanship could be possible if the two parties could break down the legislation in Congress "into smaller bites and smaller bills."
But he continued, adding also that being bipartisan "doesn't mean taking one little Republican idea and sticking it into a 2,000-page bill."
Boehner, Pence and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., all agreed that Friday's discussion with Obama "was a good first step."
"We hope this notion of the 'party of no ideas' can finally be banished from the debate," said Pence.
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