President rues ‘shellacking’

President Barack Obama yesterday admitted he suffered a “shellacking” in mid-term elections, but would not concede the rout represented a massive repudiation of his transformative domestic agenda.

A chastened President instead blamed the loss of the House of Representatives and Republican gains in the Senate on deep voter frustration at the sluggish recovery and his failure to clean up the “ugly mess” in Washington.

“It feels bad,” Mr Obama said, digesting his defeat in a White House news conference setting the tone for a looming period of divided government and political confrontation in which he must now chart his 2012 re-election bid.

“There is no doubt that people’s number-one concern is the economy, and what they were expressing great frustration about is the fact that we haven’t made enough progress on the economy,” Mr Obama said.

“They don’t see it... so I think I have got to take direct responsibility for the fact that we have not made as much progress as we need to make.”

“I have got to do a better job – just like everybody else in Washington does.”

Republican leaders meanwhile, savouring deep countrywide gains, promised to seek common ground where possible, but warned voters had sent a signal that Mr Obama’s reform plans had gone too far and must be halted.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, in line to replace the first woman speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi in January, said Mr Obama must “change course.”

“I think it’s pretty clear that the Obama-Pelosi agenda is being rejected by the American people,” Mr Boehner told reporters, and called Mr Obama’s signature health reform law a “monstrosity”.

With pundits already warning Tuesday’s rout could augur ill for Mr Obama’s 2012 re-election bid, the President also said that ex-President’s Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton had suffered mid-term pain, but won second terms.

“I’m not recommending for every future President that they take a shellacking like I did last night,” he said, noting how hard it was in the White House “bubble” to feel the pain of ordinary Americans.

“You know, I’m sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons.”

But Mr Obama repeatedly avoided the chance offered by journalists to concede that his sweeping political agenda, including health care reform, had been an overreach of his 2008 mandate.

And he said it was now important for Democrats and Republicans to sit together and seek common ground on creating jobs and the economy.