Obama takes a victory lap, then gets back to work

President Obama didn't take much time to savor his victory before he turned his attention to what awaits him in Washington.

After making his speech to jubilant supporters early Wednesday, the president spent a little time celebrating with campaign staff and friends at receptions and victory parties. But before he went to bed, Obama already had started making a round of calls to congressional leaders to talk about the legislative agenda for the remainder of the year.

In conversations with House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Obama made it clear that averting the "fiscal cliff" and extending tax cuts for middle-class families were at the top of his agenda.

Averting the fiscal cliff — $600 billion in automatic tax increases and budget cuts that are set to take effect Jan. 1 unless Congress and the White House find another plan — may be the highest priority for the president, but it's not all he faces.

Obama was briefed Wednesday by the National Weather Service on torrential weather bearing down on the Northeast, and he held a conference call with some of his top advisers on the response to last week's Hurricane Sandy.

Even before the election, Obama was pushing Congress to embrace his proposal to allow struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages. The president has argued that the already-improving housing market would be better if Congress passed the proposal and has called on Americans to press lawmakers to take up the question after the election.

Obama may also use the lame-duck session to renew his call to take up his Jobs Act, his proposal to hire thousands more teachers and first responders, while modernizing infrastructure.

In comments to reporters Wednesday, Vice President Biden suggested that the election demonstrated that Americans back Obama's call for extending middle-class tax cuts while raising rates for the wealthiest Americans to help reduce the country's ballooning deficit.

Exit polls showed that a plurality of Americans back raising taxes on families making more than $250,000.

"There was a clear, clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy," said Biden, who expressed optimism that the White House, Democratic lawmakers and GOP leadership could soon come to an agreement to overhaul corporate taxes. "I just think it's going to take time for the Republicans to sort of digest what the consequences (would be) for them internally."

In his victory speech, Obama took a conciliatory tone and said he would huddle with Mitt Romney in the coming weeks to talk about ways they could work together in the future. Obama even stressed that his reading of the election results was a call by American voters for bipartisanship.

Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, observed that Obama's conciliatory language contrasted with the remarks President Bush made in 2004 soon after defeating Sen. John Kerry in a similarly close election. After his victory over Kerry, Bush declared the American people had given him a mandate and pushed full steam ahead on what would become an unsuccessful effort to privatize Social Security.

"(Obama) and his team learned the lesson of 2004 not to over-interpret an election result," Bennett said. "He's fully aware that upon returning to Washington, he's going to be engaged in a very difficult negotiation."

Before leaving Chicago, Obama made one last stop at his campaign's headquarters to thank staff members and get a final glimpse of the nerve center where the last political campaign of his life was plotted. Obama, who was greeted with a standing ovation by his staff, spent more than an hour at the campaign headquarters before heading to O'Hare International Airport to fly back to Washington.

On the flight home, Air Force One Col. Scott Turner and some crewmembers brought the president a sheet cake to congratulate him.

As they posed for pictures with Obama, White House press secretary Jay Carney said a question dawned on the president.

"There is somebody flying this plane, right?" he asked.

By Wednesday evening, he was back to work at the White House.