Word: boehner
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TIME: What are the key issues and new ideas you want to put forward in the next two years? Boehner: It's not what I want to do; it's what our conference wants to do, and I expect that I'll lead an effort amongst our members to learn from the results of these last two years, to understand more clearly why we don't do better in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic states, upper Midwest, the West Coast ... We have a lot of learning to do before we begin to stake out those new solutions...
TIME: Obama has said he wants to change the way Washington works. Can you all come together? Boehner: It's important to see what direction they go. So we'll look forward to his budget submission, which is early February, and we'll look forward to those first moves that we see here in the Congress. Now, if he wants to take this middle path, postpartisanship, more power to him. We'll be there to work with him. But it's not going to just be him - it's going to be, you know, Where's the Democratic Congress going...
TIME: Do you think there are more ideologues than pragmatists in the House Republican Conference? Boehner: If you're looking at my voting record, I have one of the most conservative voting records in the House. But I don't wear it on my sleeve. [Laughs.] I don't shove it in people's face. I don't expect everybody to vote the way I do ... There's a lot of labels that get thrown around, and one of the reasons I don't belong to any of these organizations in our Congress is [that] because when you join...
TIME: Is 2008 like 1992? Are Republicans looking for the next Newt Gingrich to come along? Boehner: The only parallels are we've got a Democratic Congress and we've got a Democratic President. Beyond that, I don't think there really are any parallels. We've got a whole different set of concerns in America, a lot of anxiety in America, and we as a political party have to learn to respond to that in a way that makes us an acceptable alternative...
TIME: Some in the National Review and in other places have called you a caretaker in the role of Republican leader. How do you respond to that? Boehner: Oh, there's been a lot said over the last two weeks. Clearly, we've been through two very difficult cycles. If I thought that I was to blame for what happened over those last two cycles, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have run. I think we did our best considering the cards that we were dealt. And I believe that the cards that will be dealt...