Obama Says Vote Turned on Economy - New York Times

on the economy” rather than a referendum on him, his policies or the Democratic Party.

While he said he should be held accountable for the economy as the nation’s leader, he did not accept the suggestion that he pursued the wrong agenda over the last two years, and he focused blame on his failure to build public support for what he was doing or to change the way Washington works.

In a session taped for CBS’s “60 Minutes” before Mr. Obama left for Asia, the correspondent Steve Kroft pointed out to the president that Republicans view the election as a referendum on him and the Democrats, and asked if he agreed. “I think first and foremost it was a referendum on the economy,” Mr. Obama said. “And the party in power was held responsible for an economy that is still underperforming.”

The interview was Mr. Obama’s first since the election and largely tracked the sentiments he expressed at his news conference the day after the vote.

The president’s interpretation of the election underscored the contrasting messages the two parties have taken from the elections. Republicans won at least 60 more seats in the House to take control, the largest such gain by either party since 1948, and picked up six more seats in the Senate, putting them close to parity with the Democrats, who maintained a much slimmer majority. Republicans also scored significant victories in governor’s and state legislative races.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader slated to become speaker, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican minority leader, have said the election was a clear verdict on Mr. Obama’s policies. Mr. Boehner told ABC News last week that the president is experiencing “some denial” and Mr. McConnell repeated Sunday that the issue was not the message but the substance.

“I think the president believes that somehow he didn’t – his product was good but he just didn’t sell it well,” Mr. McConnell said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “I think he’s a good salesman. I think his problem was not his sales job. It was the product. The American people simply did not like what the president and this Congress were doing substantively.”

Surveys of voters at polling places showed that 37 percent said last Tuesday they were casting their votes to express opposition to Mr. Obama’s policies, while 24 percent said they were supporting his policies. The rest said he was not the impetus for their vote. Those numbers are almost identical to those in 2006 when voters cast judgment on President George W. Bush’s policies and Democrats seized control of Congress in a mid-term election they cast as a referendum on the incumbent president.

Mr. Obama made clear in his interview that he sees the economy as the main source of voter frustration. With unemployment stuck for months at 9.6 percent, no other president in decades has gone into a mid-term election with the jobless rate as high for as long. Nearly 9 in 10 voters last week expressed worry about the direction of the economy; four in 10 said reducing deficits should be the first priority while 4 in 10 said job creation should be a priority.

In his interview, Mr. Obama focused on the latter group, which tended to vote more Democratic than those concerned about deficits. To the notion that voters may have sent a message for smaller, less costly, more accountable government, Mr. Obama responded, “First and foremost, they want jobs and economic growth in this country.”

Pressed by Mr. Kroft, he then added that voters also care about spending. “There is no doubt that folks are concerned about debt and deficits,” he said. “I think that is absolutely a priority. And by the way, that’s a concern that I had before I was even sworn in.”

Echoing comments from his news conference, the president expressed his willingness to negotiate with Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell on tax cuts and other issues but gave no specific examples of where he would change his position to build consensus.

The president offered praise for the Republican leaders and expressed regret that at times he had gone too far in his campaign rhetoric attacking the opposition. “Both John and Mitch are very smart,” he said. “They’re capable. They have been able to, I think, organize the Republican caucus very effectively in opposition to a lot of the things that we tried to do over the last two years. And that takes real political skill.”

Without mentioning any examples, he said he bore responsibility for some of the tenor of political discourse lately. “I’ve been guilty of that. It’s not just them,” he said. “Part of my promise to the American people when I was elected was to maintain the kind of tone that says we can disagree without being disagreeable. And I think over the course of two years, there have been times where I’ve slipped on that commitment.”

View the original article here

US Sweetens Offer to Take Sudan Off Terrorist State List - New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Obama has told Sudan that if it allows a politically sensitive referendum to go ahead in January, and abides by the results, the United States will move to take the country off its list of state sponsors of terrorism as early as next July, administration officials said Sunday.

The offer, conveyed to the Sudanese authorities over the weekend by Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, represents a significant sweetening of the package of incentives the administration offered to Sudan in September for its cooperation with the vote.

Under a peace agreement that ended years of civil war in Sudan, the government in Khartoum agreed to a referendum, now scheduled for Jan. 9, in which the people of southern Sudan will decide whether to secede from the north. They are expected to vote overwhelmingly to do so.

But as the date for the vote nears, there are persistent reports of foot-dragging by the Sudanese authorities in preparing for it, as well as fears of a new outbreak of violence if the north does not honor the results. Dividing Sudan is hugely complicated, since most of its oil fields lie in the south.

In September, the administration presented Sudan with incentives ranging from modest steps like the delivery of agricultural equipment to more sweeping measures, including debt relief, normalized diplomatic relations, the lifting of sanctions and the removal of Sudan from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, which it has been on since 1993.

Administration officials said then that they did not expect to take that last step until late 2011 or 2012, one official said, because it was also linked to a resolution of the violence in the Darfur region. But now the United States has made it contingent only on the referendum. The Sudanese government, another official said, had pushed in recent weeks for more clarity in the incentives.

“I believe a broad agreement is within reach if they act with the sense of urgency that is necessary to seize this historic opportunity,” Mr. Kerry said in a statement on Sunday as he left Sudan.

Sudan has long petitioned to be removed from the State Department list, which also includes Iran, Cuba and Syria. Under President Bill Clinton, the administration designated its placement there on the grounds that it harbored Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. But in recent years, Sudan has cooperated in counterterrorism efforts.

Over time, Sudan’s designation has been expanded to include its role in mass killings in Darfur. Economic sanctions against Sudan remain linked to the violence in Darfur, officials said, and cannot be lifted without approval from Congress. Earlier this week, Mr. Obama renewed those sanctions. The president can remove Sudan from the terrorism list after notifying Congress.

The United States, an official said, will not relax “our commitment to solving the problems that have dogged Darfur.”

The administration’s offer does not depend on resolving another sticking point: a separate plebiscite by people in the contested border region of Abyei to decide to join northern or southern Sudan. The two sides have not agreed on the terms of that vote, also scheduled for January.

With diplomats still struggling to break the impasse, administration officials said they recognized that the plebiscite on Abyei may have to be deferred until after the broader vote on independence by southern Sudan.

North Korea was the last nation the United States removed from the terrorism list. That was done by the Bush administration in 2008, in an effort to encourage Pyongyang to be more pliant in talks over its nuclear program — a goal that has been largely unmet, given North Korea’s recent intransigence.

View the original article here

Chilean miner thanks America for NY marathon support - Telegraph.co.uk

Mr Peña hobbled his way over the finish line in Central Park at 3.30pm, five hours and 40 minutes after beginning the race in Staten Island.

“I’m not from this country, but I saw posters saying ‘Go Edison!” and 'Go for it Peña!' from people I didn’t even know," he said at the finish line.

"The warmth from the American people is amazing.”

The 34 year-old, who was the 12th man to be raised to the surface in the Phoenix rescue capsule from deep below the Atacama Desert last month, had been dubbed "the runner" for his gruelling subterranean exercise regime.

The fitness fanatic and Elvis Presley enthusiast jogged in his heavy miners' boots for several miles each day of his ordeal through dark uneven tunnels finding his footing by the light of his miner's lamp.

He suffered from a knee injury while in the mine, which made his progress during the marathon extremely painful. Mr Peña, who sported a knee support for the run, was forced to walk the last section of the course, from Manhattan to the finish.

“I cried twice because of the pain in my knees,” he said. “But I didn’t travel this far to give up."

Carrying aloft the Chilean flag, Mr Peña was met at the finish line by his wife, Angélica.

He was invited to participate in the challenge through the streets of Manhattan by organisers, who were inspired by his drive and stamina.

"I could have come just to watch, but I decided to take part, to feel the emotion," he said ahead of Sunday's race.

"I have a strong desire to motivate the others. This is the most important thing for me."

On arrival in New York on Thursday he was a guest on The Late Show hosted by David Letterman, where with gyrating hips and quivering lip the miner won over the audience with his own rendition of Elvis's "Suspicious Minds".

He will visit Graceland, Presley's mansion in Memphis, Tennessee and will make a trip to Las Vegas to see "Viva Elvis," a Cirque du Soleil show, before flying home to Chile.

View the original article here