“We’d make music together”

WASHINGTON — In January 2010, just one year into his presidency, President Obama traveled from the White House to Capitol Hill to deliver his first State of the Union address. Health care was being debated, Republican Scott Brown had just been elected senator from Massachusetts, and the economy remained sluggish.

With his presidency already at a crossroads, Obama returned to a theme that had guided his political career: He admonished both parties for their divisiveness, urged them to work together, and said he hadn’t given up on trying to change the corrosive tone of the country’s politics.

In fact, he said, he wanted to begin meeting monthly with Republican and Democratic leaders to “show the American people that we can do it together.”

“I know you can’t wait,” he added, as members of Congress laughed.

 

But wait they did.

His first one-on-one meeting with the top Republican in the House, John Boehner, did not come for another year and a half. In nearly five years in office, Obama has met individually with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell two times, according to a review of White House visitor logs, pool reports, and press releases. Obama did initially hold regular meetings with other members of the congressional leadership; after several months those sessions became sporadic.

Obama’s talk of uniting the nation often has not translated into, to use military parlance, “boots on the ground.” He has visited Democrat-leaning “blue” states six times more often than he has visited Republican “red” states. He has staffed much of his administration with people who grew up in blue states. None of his major legislative accomplishments — the stimulus, health care, and financial reforms — received more than six Republican votes.

In sum, one of the biggest failures of Obama’s presidency is that, five years after he took office vowing to close the partisan divide, the capital he now oversees and the country he represents are far more divided than they were before he came.

Boston Globe