White House political adviser David Axelrod tells Mike Allen the White House is looking for more opportunities to involve Republicans in the tough choices necessary in governing, like President Obama did last Friday taking questions at the House Republican retreat.
Said Axelrod: "You can't have a situation where we're governing and they're simply running an election campaign. Everybody's got to pick up an oar here and row, if we're going to get to where we need to go. Those guys were kind of free riders in the first year. The boat's got a lot of freight."
Also interesting: "There was not one minute of prep here -- I guarantee it. He left here for Baltimore on the helicopter, and we didn't have any discussion about Q-and-A. It was thoroughly spontaneous, at least from our end."