Obama & Romney meet

By Marcos Gonzalez

Though they were opposing candidates on the ballot just a few weeks ago, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney met for lunch at the White House on Thursday, to sit down and look at similar interests.

In their first meeting since the election, Obama and the Republican nominee met in the White House’s private dining room without any media present. Obama promised the meeting in his victory speech on November 6th.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama had no specific agenda for the meeting, but the president wanted to discuss Romney’s ideas for making government more efficient. Obama has proposed merging some functions of government related to business.

“The president noted that Gov. Romney did a terrific job running the Olympics and that that skills set lends itself to ideas that could make the federal government work better, which is a passion of the president’s,” Carney said.

Prior to the 2012 election they had a handful of exchanges, but Thursday’s meeting was thought to be their most extensive private talk to date. Their campaign interactions were largely seen during their three presidential debates.

Obama and Romney differed greatly during the campaign over what to do with Bush era tax cuts get to expire in January. The gap pushed for them to be extended for all income earners and the president run on a pledge to let the cuts expire for families making more than $250,000 a year.

Romney arrived at the White House early Thursday afternoon in a black SUV He left after staying for just over an hour.

For Romney, it was a day of closure after a hard-fought campaign.

Image Courtesy: AP Images