Can Republican Leaders Trust Obama's Charm Offensive?

After a week of President Obama extending lunch and dinner invites to congressional Republicans, ahead of the next budget battle, party leaders are expressing cautious optimism about the president being sincere – not just leading a so-called charm offensive.

The invitations appear to be a change in political tactics for Obama, who since elected in 2008 has largely avoided courting Congress, preferring as of late to instead make his case to the public with campaign-style events.

He also plans to keep up the effort this week with three scheduled trips to Capitol Hill to visit Democrats and Republicans in both chambers, a likely effort to broker a “grand bargain” on tax and spending instead of another short-term fix.

"I hope that this is sincere," Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, who had lunch Thursday with Obama at the White House, told “Fox News Sunday.” “We had a very good, frank exchange. But the proof will be in the coming weeks as to whether or not it's a real, sincere outreach to find common ground."

Obama’s apparent courtship follows $85 billion in spending cuts this year that kicked in March 1 and before the next deadline, March 27, when the current short-term budget extension expires and a government shutdown looms.

Ryan, R-Wis., also told Fox his proposal for 2014 would balance the federal budget in 10 years, but is based in part on repeal of the president’s Affordable Care Act, which appears unlikely.

Though Republicans appeared optimistic, they also expressed concern that the president’s second-term efforts might be too late.

“I think he is sincere,” said Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, who attended the hotel dinner with 11 other Republican senators Wednesday night.  

“But you know, you’ve got a lot of scabs and sores on people,” Coburn told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And it’s going to take a while for that to heal.”

The president will have to work quickly to achieve even a shorter-term deal, considering Congress is scheduled to leave town March 22.

Senate Democrats said they already have a spending measure ready for passage that would pay for day-to-day federal operations through September. The measure would impose automatic cuts of 5 percent to domestic agencies and 7.8 percent to the Pentagon.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Sunday that leaders of the Democrat-controlled Senate also are working on full budget for passage, the first in four years. And he expressed optimism about an eventual Hill deal.

“The two (chambers’) budgets will be different,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We're going to have to find a balanced solution, and it will involve all elements. It will involve talking about revenues, talking about expenses, talking about entitlements. We have to do that.”

Still, some Republicans seem unconvinced about the president's recent efforts.  

"I hope that he's genuine,” Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., told NBC. “But I don't think we're going to be doing the Harlem Shake any time soon together."

Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy question whether Obama’s efforts were about winning over the Republican-controlled House or “governing for all of America.”

“Only time will tell,” the California congressman told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Are you wired to be a Republican?

Were you born to be a Democrat, or do you always cast a ballot for the Republican Party?

There might soon be an odd new way to find out—and one that has nothing to do with your perspective on the economy. A quick brain scan seems to reveal a person’s political affiliation with impressive accuracy, finds new research. 

The study, from the University of Exeter and the University of California, San Diego, evaluated the brain activity of 82 subjects engaged in gambling games. Then, researchers compared participants’ cerebral activity to their declared political parties. While Republicans and Democrats took similar risks during the games, the brain activity that prompted those risks was extremely different.

More from Prevention:  7 Brain Games That Make You Smarter

Among participants who voted Democrat, gray matter showed more activation in the left posterior insula, the region linked with empathy and emotion. The other side of the brain was Republican territory: conservatives flexed their right amygdala more often when making decisions. That brain region is associated with fear, reward, and a fight-or-flight response.

Incredibly, these differences were so pronounced that brain activity alone allowed researchers to anticipate, with 83 percent accuracy, which party a study participant belonged to. By comparison, knowing the party affiliation of an individual’s parents allows for 69 percent accuracy when making the same prediction, researchers noted in their study.

And political affiliation isn’t the only weird factoid that a brain scan might reveal. 

Here, three recent neuro-findings that may explain various personality traits (and how to trump your own gray matter if it doesn’t predispose you to them):

You’re creative. Last year, research published in Scientific Reports found that when rap singers improvise rhymes, certain regions of their brains exhibit an activity pattern that best supports creativity. Fortunately, you don’t need to be Jay-Z to score creativity credibility. Unlock your creative power by engaging in spontaneous behavior, such as writing a story without deciding on its plot beforehand, or doodling without a clear sense of what you want to draw.

You’re getting gullible. A recent experiment from the University of California, Los Angeles studied how people in two age groups—20-somethings and the over-55 set—reacted to a series of faces. While undergoing a brain scan, participants rated each face as trustworthy, neutral, or untrustworthy. Members of the older population were consistently less able to identify untrustworthy faces. Turns out, they also experienced limited activation in their anterior insula—the part of the brain associated with recognizing negative emotions. (Help your brain beat gullibility at any age with our 10 Ways To Keep Your Mind Sharp.)

You have a way with words. If you’re lucky enough to know two languages, then you’ve also got a more flexible brain than those of us stuck with just one tongue. Using fMRI scans, researchers reporting in The Journal of Neuroscience revealed that bilingual participants required less energy in their brain’s frontal cortex—the area associated with short-term memory and mental dexterity—when completing various tasks. Short of learning German, what’s a gal to do? 

“A huge amount of research shows that activities to stimulate cognition are very valuable," says John L. Woodard, a professor of psychology and an aging expert at Wayne State University. "It doesn't need to be a second language. Play an instrument, join a choir, try creative writing, travel more often, or visit more museums. All of these will help."

More from Prevention:  9 Ways to Be More Creative

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