GOP leader's top goal: Make Obama 1-term president

Sen. McConnell takes hard line, aims to cut down health care law                     

WASHINGTON — The Senate's Republican leader has a simple postelection message for President Barack Obama: Move toward the GOP or get no help from its lawmakers.

First Thoughts: McConnell doubles down


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday offered an aggressive assessment of the election results, calling for votes to erode the reach of the health care law that was a signature of the Obama administration.
"That means that we can — and should — propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly," McConnell said
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Story: Nixing — or 'fixing' — health law? Don't hold your breath

He said the only way Republicans in Congress can achieve their goals is "to put someone in the White House who won't veto" a repeal of Obama's health care reform, spending cuts and shrinking the government.
McConnell said the results of the midterms were not about Republicans but instead about Democrats, who he said got an "F." He said he expects Democrats will begin peeling off of their base to start supporting GOP initiatives.
"Every one of the 23 Democrats up [for re-election] in the next cycle have a clear understanding of what happened Tuesday," McConnell said. "I think we have major opportunities for bipartisan coalitions to support what we want to do."

McConnell eyes Democrats up for re-election in 201

McConnell's confrontational tone was in sharp contrast to the chastened posture Obama took Wednesday in the face of a new Republican controlled House and Republican gains in the Senate.
On Wednesday, likely incoming House Speaker John Boehner said the he promised to be honest with Obama and the two agreed to work together on cutting spending and creating jobs, even though Republicans campaigned on vows to turn back much of Obama's agenda.
In remarks prepared for a speech Thursday to the conservative Heritage Foundation, McConnell says Republicans will work to deny Obama a second term in the White House in 2012.
"Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office," McConnell said. "But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things."
McConnell's own approval rating, per a September NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, is 12 percent positive, 20 percent neutral and 18 percent negative, with another 50 percent responding that they did not have an opinion.
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell addresses the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., about remarks he made earlier this week in which he said making President Obama a one-term president is a top goal for the GOP.