Obama hopes he, Romney meet by year's end

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. President Obama said he hopes to meet with former Republican challenger Mitt Romney before the end of the year to discuss ways they could work together.

"There're certain aspects of Governor Romney's record and his ideas that I think could be very helpful," Obama said Wednesday during a news conference.

During his acceptance speech on Election Night Obama said he wanted to sit down with Romney to discuss ways that they could work together on this nation's problems.

"I do think he did a terrific job running the Olympics," he said. "That skill set of trying to figure out how do we make something work better applies to the federal government."

"There are a lot of ideas that I don't think are partisan ideas but are just smart ideas about how can we make the federal government more customer friendly, how can we make sure that ... we're consolidating programs that are duplicative ... how can we eliminate additional waste."

During the campaign Romney presented ideas Obama said he agreed with, "so it'd be interesting to talk to him. ... There may be ideas that he has with respect to jobs and growth that can help middle-class families that I want to hear."