United States President, Mr. Barrack Obama, yesterday said that he hopes to meet with former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in next month after saying in his acceptance speech that conferring with his former rival would be one way to seek common ground between the parties.
“We haven't scheduled something yet,” Obama said, adding that “everybody needs to catch their breath” after the election.
Obama said he was sure Romney was spending time with his family in the aftermath of the hard-fought campaign but that his hope was “before the end of the year, we have a chance to sit down and talk.” He also praised the Republican nominee's tenure managing the Salt Lake City Olympics.
“There are certain aspects of Gov Romney’s record and his ideas that I think could be very helpful. And well, to give you one example, I do think he did a terrific job running the Olympics. And you know, that skill set of trying to figure out how do we make something work better applies to the federal government,” Obama said. “There are a lot of ideas that I don't think are partisan ideas but are just smart ideas about how can we make the federal government more customer-friendly.”
The president went on to say Romney had presented ideas during the campaign “that I actually agree with” aimed at cutting government waste and preventing duplicity.
“So, you know, I'm not either prejudging what he's interested in doing nor am I suggesting I've got some specific assignment, but what I want to do is to, is to get ideas from him and see if, see if there's some ways that we can potentially work together,” Obama said.
In his acceptance speech last week, Obama said he would look to reach out to his former rival in the coming days.
“In the weeks ahead I also look forward to sitting down with Gov. Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward,” Obama said.