Washington: US President Barack Obama on Wednesday praised Mitt Romney for a terrific job with the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and said he hopes to have the chance to talk with him to discuss ways that "we can potentially work together".
"There are certain aspects of Governor Romney`s record and his ideas that I think could be very helpful. And well, to give you one example, I do think he did a terrific job running the Olympics," Obama said during his maiden press conference after his re-election.
"You know, we haven`t scheduled something yet. I think everybody forgets that the election was only a week ago. And I know I`ve forgotten. I forgot on Wednesday. So you know I think everybody needs to catch their breath. I`m sure that Governor Romney is spending some time with his family.
"And my hope is, before the end of the year, though, that we have a chance to sit down and talk," Obama said in response to a question.
Praising Romney, Obama said that the Republican leader has "skill set", which he is trying to figure out how to make something work better applies to the federal government.
"There are a lot of ideas that I don`t think are partisan ideas but are just smart ideas about how can we make the federal government more customer-friendly? How can we make sure that, you know, we`re consolidating programmes that are duplicative? You know, how can we eliminate additional waste?” he said.
"He presented some ideas during the course of the campaign that I actually agree with. So it`d be interesting to talk to him about something like that. There may be ideas that he has with respect to jobs and growth that can help middle-class families that I want to hear.
"I`m not either prejudging what he`s interested in doing, nor am I suggesting I`ve got some specific assignment. What I want to do is to get ideas from him and see if -- see if there are some ways that we can potentially work together," Obama said.
PTI
