Former Senate leaders Lott, Daschle see room for compromise

Both leaders weighed in on how the president and Republican leaders must make changes to break the gridlock that's paralyzed Congress the past few years.

Daschle said Obama must have "more of a conciliatory mood." Obama will meet with congressional leaders at the White House tomorrow in their first face-to-face discussion since Republicans swept Senate races in Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina to take control of the chamber next year.

'It's essential'

"It's maybe hard for some to become more inclusive, to become more engaged, to become more personal," Daschle said. "But I think in this case it's essential to good governance."

Lott said McConnell also needs to change. "He needs to be more accessible and more aggressive," he said. "You need to initiate the calls" with Obama "and get over the insults," Lott said of McConnell.

They also recommended starting joint caucus meetings between Republican and Democratic lawmakers and weekly meetings between the president and leaders from both parties.

"If you start to get to know each other and develop relationships — and I know in some cases quietly and privately members do talk across the aisle — but you got to do it as a caucus and you have to do it with some regularity," Daschle said.

Health-care law

Lott said Republicans will go through the motions of dismantling the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Obama's health-care law, and that it's better for them to "quickly have a vote to repeal it, and get it all the way through the process." Then the president will veto it, he said.

That vote is necessary to appease Republicans who argue that the election was a referendum to repeal the health law, which was the subject of numerous attack ads that helped defeat vulnerable Democrats. Among those who will push the hardest for more votes on repealing Obamacare is Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite.

Cruz alienated many of his Senate colleagues in demanding to attach a repeal of Obamacare to a bill to temporarily fund the government, culminating in a 16-day partial government shutdown last year.

Lott said that to deal with lawmakers like Cruz, leaders should "pull them in, meet with them, talk to them, go to them early and often," he said. He said he also had a group of senators, moderates and liberals, he had to "keep an eye on."

"What did I do? You know, I had a singing senators' quartet," Lott said.