Associated Press White House correspondent Julie Pace wondered Thursday on “Morning Joe” whether President Obama actually paid attention to how badly his party performed in the midterm elections, given how “optimistic” and “upbeat” he was at Wednesday’s press conference.
“Well, there was this sense throughout the news conference that, you know, maybe the president didn’t quite pay attention to what happened in the election. He was so optimistic,” Pace said. “He was so upbeat, you wanted to say, ‘You know, Mr. President, your party had a tough night here.'”
“Part of this was strategic from the White House. They were insistent the president wouldn’t go out there, have a repeat of the shellacking moment from 2010,” she said. “The risk in doing that is that it makes it took like the president is not going take any lessons from this election.”
“He’s not going to make major changes, not only with personnel and his staff, those sort of obvious things but in how he deals with Republicans,” said the AP reporter. “He basically said I’m going to continue talking to Republicans as I have been, I’m going to don’t look for areas of compromise.”
“It just did not sound like a president who was looking at this as a pivot point and an opportunity to change course over the next two years,” she added.