Where is the love?

Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack sang it years ago and President Barack Obama certainly felt it as he stepped to the podium for his first White House press conference that came after his party was beaten down in national midterm elections.

Reflective and somber, Obama compared his relationship with the American people to that of young lovers. He said the getting to know you period came when he first challenged the Democratic establishment during the primaries. He said the relationship "peaked" during his historic election two years ago.

And now?

"Things sometimes get rockier and tougher," Obama said.

Those are perfect words to describe the political landscape facing Obama and his Democratic party in the wake of Tuesday's election. During his 59-minute press briefing, Obama himself termed it a "shellacking" and said he would seek compromise with the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

Obama said that if he couldn't persuade the GOP to support at least some of his initiatives in the next two years "it's going to be hard to get anything done."

The political prospects are bleak for Obama, especially in keeping the base of his support, blacks and other progressives happy.

Obama already faced criticism from some quarters that his policies were too timid and didn't push hard enough for radical change promised during the campaign.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have been at the front of complaints that the president hasn't tailored programs designed specially to help black people, who turned out strong in 2008 to help seal his victory.

Obama has been reluctant to put forward programs to help blacks specifically. That was by choice. But now, politics will keep his hands tied on that front. So it's hard to see what Obama will be able to offer black folks in the way of programs when he comes calling for re-election votes in 2012.

He could either be conciliatory and pledge to scale back his agenda or stay his course and hope Republicans push back too hard and draw public scorn that could help Democrats in 2012.

Obama took the middle ground, saying he would listen to any ideas on a host of proposals ranging from budget cutting to amending health care reform that made sense regardless of where they came from.

However, the president added there will be some issues that the political parties simply won't agree on and that they will be decided in elections yet to come.

"It feels bad" is how Obama answered the question of how the election results left him.

It's no wonder. The results were a report card on how the country graded the president's first two years in office. He didn't fail. The Democrats did win some key victories and managed to hold onto the Senate.

But overall, it is easy to see why he is down.

Obama spent the final days of the election keying on his base in black America, enlisting the aid of popular black actresses like Alfre Woodard and Gabrielle Union in a get out the Democratic vote campaign. He also did a radio blitz on black radio stations around the country to boost the black vote.

It didn't work.

So now Obama is left to wonder whether black America and the nation at large will ever get back that loving feeling.