Here’s an excerpt from Michael Smerconish’s seventh interview with President Obama, this one took place Friday in the Oval Office.

Read the entire interview at philly.com or listen to it at smerconish.com.
Listen to the whole interview here:
soundcloud.com

Michael Smerconish: Let’s talk polarization… . You’ve been unsuccessful in getting Republicans to work with you. Today, I noted that the Washington Post … said that you’ve been isolated… . What can, what will, you do in a second term to win cooperation from Republicans?

President Obama: Well, I think the most important thing is, after the election - and I believe I’m going to win - to once again bring the Republicans together with my administration and Democrats and say to them, the election is over; we still have some big problems to solve, and the goal of making me a one-term president is behind us. And the question now is, how do we move forward in a way that strengthens middle-class families, makes sure that job growth is strong, and that wages are going up.

Probably the first piece of business is going to be to go ahead and fix our deficit and debt issues, and make a decision about how big our government is and how we’re going to pay for it. And I put forward a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan - we’ve already cut a trillion dollars’ worth of government spending. We can do the rest by a sensible combination of spending cuts and some revenue.

And if we can spend the first four, five, six months getting that done, so that the American people feel like the parties came together and put us on a more solid fiscal footing, where we don’t have to worry about taxes going up sky high for everybody, we don’t have to worry about massive cuts that would hurt our economy and our growth, then I think that that will break the fever here in Washington.

Q: Will you make the first move? Will you go to Capitol Hill?

A: Listen, I’ve said to folks, I’ll go to Capitol Hill, I’ll wash [House Speaker] John Boehner’s car, I’ll walk [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s dog - I’ll do whatever is required to get this done. And I think the key that the American people want right now is for us to tackle some big challenges that we face in a common-sense, balanced, sensible way.

See the Romney reaction here: littlegreenfootballs.com