Obama Wields the Oval Invite

With Arlen Specter, the president was “crisp” and “professional” and threw in some talk about judges. 

With Olympia Snowe, he was more casual, warming up with memories of the late Paul Simon, a mutual friend. 

With Ben Nelson — a conservative Democrat and stimulus skeptic — the president connected on a personal level by talking first about families. 

Facing an unexpectedly uphill fight on his economic recovery bill, the new commander in chief has deployed one of the highest-profile assets at his disposal — one-on-one meetings in the Oval Office with senators whose votes he desperately needed. 

The tactic seems to be working. 

As the Senate prepares to vote on the plan Monday and Tuesday, the four fence-sitting senators who met privately with President Barack Obama last week — Specter, Snowe, Nelson and Maine Republican Susan Collins — all say they intend to vote yes. 

The four senators described their separate sessions with Obama as a “soft sell” — there was no horse trading, no twisting of arms, no LBJ-style browbeating. And there was no one else present — just the president and a senator, alone together in the Oval Office. 

“It was amazing,” Collins said of her private half-hour meeting with Obama. “Presidents don’t do that. But it does help to be alone and have a free exchange.” 

When the meetings began — on time — Obama started off with small talk, then moved onto his vision for the stimulus plan and his belief that urgent action is needed. The senators offered their own suggestions on how to improve the package, including tens of billions of dollars in cuts from what had been proposed. In the end, these cuts became the basis for the deal that was struck Friday. 

“It was very crisp, very professional,” said Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican. “We had a meeting at 11:45 [a.m.]. On the button, I was escorted in. He was in shirtsleeves, which is the way I work in my office. We sat in the big chairs, and we talked.” 

For any lawmaker, the prospect of heading down Pennsylvania Avenue to meet with the president presents as much risk as opportunity. It’s nice to get the attention, but there’s an expectation of action afterward: Either an agreement has been reached, or the lawmaker emerges from the White House having said no to the commander in chief. 

“The Oval Office is the ultimate home-field advantage,” said David Hobbs, who served as President George W. Bush’s legislative director. 

Hobbs said that lawmakers often turn down invitations for a very public “private” meeting with the president, preferring a phone call or a chat with the president’s senior aides — or even an offer to slip into the back door of the White House unseen. 

“Many times, the member hasn’t requested it, and they might not want to do it,” Hobbs said. “It depends on if they want to make a deal or not.” 

Patrick Griffin, a former Senate aide who ran the White House legislative affairs shop under President Bill Clinton, said there were “numerous factors” for the president to consider, too. 

“Are you trying to give someone a lift? Are you trying to get something from them?” Griffin said. “There are multiple calculations in the assessment in whether you go ahead with it and how you do it.”

In Specter, Snowe and Collins, the Obama White House saw three Republicans who could be persuaded to support the stimulus bill — and wouldn’t mind basking in some of the new president’s glow.

“These guys have put themselves in the middle [of the stimulus debate] for a reason,” Griffin added. “They wanted to be courted by the president.”

Obama came prepared. Familiar with the senators from his time as their colleague, he calibrated his approach differently for each of them.

Snowe said her meeting with Obama was “very informal, casual, friendly.” When she arrived at the White House, an aide gave her a tour of the West Wing, where she ran into Vice President Joe Biden as well as her predecessor, former Democratic Sen. George Mitchell , who is now the Middle East envoy.

Once she sat down in the Oval Office, Snowe and Obama — wearing a jacket and tie this time — reminisced about Simon, the Illinois Democrat who died in 2003. Snowe said she and Simon “worked on a great effort together to restore cuts in the student loan program back in 1995, so I though the world of Paul Simon. We talked about all that.”

Although Snowe has been approached recently about working in Obama’s administration, she said the subject didn’t come up during their meeting.

Snowe gave Obama a list of ideas to evaluate, including programs to drop from the package, and Obama said he’d consider it.

He did not ask for her vote.

It’s part of the dance: When the president doesn’t ask, the senator doesn’t have to answer, and both sides can save face.

With Specter — the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee — Obama apparently aimed to establish his bipartisan bona fides by talking about judicial nominees. It’s an area of keen interest for both men; Specter wants Obama to renominate some of Bush’s nominees, while Obama is interested in toning down the partisan rhetoric surrounding presidential picks for the federal bench.

“That’s what we talked about, having a bipartisan approach [on judicial nominations],” Specter said. “I think he means it.”

Nelson said he met with both Clinton and Bush at the White House but that his 20-minute session with Obama was his first Oval Office visit with no staff present. He said that he and Obama started their conversation with small talk about their families — “small by comparison to the issues but very important,” Nelson said.

“It’s always a thrill to go in there,” Nelson said, adding that Obama “does everything to make you feel at ease, and he’s always at ease himself.”

Nelson said Obama wasn’t pressing him to win support for the Senate spending bill, just exploring what kind of deal could be reached.

“There might be another time where he might lobby you. In this case, we were just talking about what had to be done,” Nelson added. “You could have talked about the details with him because he’s familiar with some of the details,” Nelson said. “But he’s not a wonk; he just knows quite a bit.”

“After all,” Nelson added, smiling slyly, “he knew the oath of office by heart.”

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