WASHINGTON�President Barack Obama plans to have dinner Wednesday night with a group of Senate Republicans at a hotel near the White House, the first in a string of planned meetings with GOP lawmakers.
The outreach amounts to a departure from Mr. Obama's first term, when he often told advisers that partisan lines ran so deep in Washington that he saw little to be gained by socializing with lawmakers�of either party. Republicans, in turn, have called this a lone-wolf approach that has made reaching bipartisan deals on legislation more difficult.
Now, the president's attempt to cultivate what his staff calls a "common-sense caucus" suggests that he realizes he needs to win over more moderate GOP lawmakers to accomplish a series of legislative goals that have eluded him thus far: a budget agreement that would cut the deficit through tax revenue increases as well as spending cuts; a comprehensive overhaul of the immigration system; and a tightening of gun regulations.
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