Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is in active negotiation with the White House on a debt ceiling deal, and Democrats agreed late Saturday night to postpone a partisan-tinged cloture vote to give time for both sides to find a compromise. 
 
 “There are many elements to be finalized, and there is still a distance to go before any arrangement can be completed,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “But I believe we should give everyone as much room as possible to do their work.” 
 
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 “I’m glad to see this move toward cooperation and compromise. I hope it bears fruit.” 
 
 Just hours before Reid had sparred on the floor with McConnell over the seriousness of his efforts, and Reid’s change of tone — and tactics — suggested that real progress had been made. “We’re getting close,” said one GOP leadership aide, with knowledge of the discussions. 
 
 “In the category of getting serious, I have spoken to both the president and the vice president within the last hour,” McConnell had told reporters earlier in day in a joint appearance with Speaker John Boehner. “We are now fully engaged, the speaker and I, with the one person in America out of 307 million people who can sign a bill into law. I’m confident and optimistic that we’re going to get an agreement in the very near future and resolve this crisis in the best interests of the American people.” 
 
 Boehner echoed McConnell’s statement, saying he believed that “we are going to be able to come to some sort of agreement.” But the speaker appears to have had no contact himself with President Barack Obama Saturday, while McConnell spoke to the president and reached out to Biden, after which the two men engaged in at least four back-and-forth phone calls through the day. 
 
 The biggest two outstanding issues are the Republicans’ insistence on “dollar-for-dollar” deficit reductions –without new tax revenues—to match any increase in the Treasury’s borrowing authority. And second, what enforcement mechanism is best to ensure that a new joint House-Senate committee will be able to come up with an estimated $1.6 trillion in savings by the end of this year. 
 
 Boehner has said that if the panel fails to meet its target, Obama can’t raise the debt ceiling— a concession that the president refuses to make since it only means more instability six months from now. The White House wants to substitute some alternative trigger that would still be action-forcing but not a threat to the whole economy. Biden is exploring options with McConnell, but even if a compromise is found, the cuts demanded by Boehner now are far larger than what the speaker had been willing to accept from Obama just last week. 
 
 One trigger option that has gained favor would impose across-the-board cuts on spending with the idea of inflicting enough pain that both parties would have an interest in meeting the joint committee's deficit target. Since Republicans have opposed any such sequester impacting revenues, the compromise now is likely to include deep defense cuts, a second priority for the GOP and therefore something of a lever. 
 
 Democrats are fearful that their own priorities—more revenues and fewer Medicare savings—will get lost in the process. And Reid didn’t hide his skepticism after returning from a 90 minute meeting with Obama, Biden and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the White House. 
 
 “Boehner won’t even negotiate and McConnell is going backward,” said one aide close to the situation. And Reid bluntly accused McConnell of engaging more for show that real compromise. 
 
 “The Republican leader says he’s engaged,” Reid said ruefully. “Fortunately, members of his caucus, at least as far as I’m concerned, are more engaged than he is. There are meaningful talks going on with some of his members with my senators.” 
 
 McConnell shot back, “I actually cut short a conversation with the vice president” to come to the floor. 
 
 The Democrats bigger worry is Boehner, who shows signs of simply running-out-the-clock, playing hard-to-get with Obama and hoping the White House will give into his demands. ||||| Warring House and Senate votes late Friday set up a tense weekend of confrontation — and what the White House hopes are still meaningful negotiations — before markets reopen Monday, one day before the threat of default. 
 
 Stocks slid for the sixth day in a row as anxiety grew on Wall Street, and Washington’s once dry debt debate has grown into a high stakes game of political chess quite unlike anything the city has seen in decades. 
 
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 The House moved first, narrowly approving a Republican-backed debt ceiling bill but only after Speaker John Boehner had to tack right again by adding a provision threatening default next year if Congress doesn’t first approve a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. 
 
 The 218-210 vote was quickly followed by a 59-41 Senate roll call tabling the House bill — at least for the moment. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set in motion a 1 a.m. Sunday cloture vote on his own debt ceiling and deficit reduction package estimated between $2.2 trillion and $2.4 trillion. 
 
 Reid’s timing was ominous, suggesting the two sides are each trying to back the other into a corner still — without reaching a meaningful deal. But the House bill could yet be resurrected and Republicans predicted it could still be amended as part of a final compromise negotiated by all sides over the weekend. 
 
 Much depends still on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is deeply worried by the prospect of default and has had a running series of conversations with Vice President Joe Biden to try to defuse the crisis. McConnell was frozen in place out of loyalty to Boehner during the House debate but even after, Democrats complained that he was restraining his rank-and-file members from participating in talks. 
 
 “There is a growing sentiment by senators on both sides of the aisle to sit down and reach a reasonable compromise to save our economy from the disaster that awaits us,” said Senate Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) “What these senators on the Republican side are waiting for is a permission slip from Sen. McConnell.” 
 
 That would be a vintage McConnell approach, but aides to the Republican leader said he is fully prepared to begin talks with Reid and others, as long as President Barack Obama is also represented at the table. 
 
 There’s been bad blood between McConnell and Reid after a falling out last weekend over debt talks also involving Boehner. But McConnell’s office expressed confidence that a deal could yet be reached with the White House represented. ||||| President Barack Obama and congressional leaders appeared no closer to ending a two-day-old government shutdown after meeting for more than an hour Wednesday night. 
 
 Instead, they resumed the same posture they held before the conference: No one is backing down. 
 
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 “The president made clear to the Leaders that he is not going to negotiate over the need for Congress to act to reopen the government or to raise the debt limit to pay the bills Congress has already incurred,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “The president reinforced his view that the House should put the clean government funding bill that has been passed by the Senate up for a vote — a bill that would pass a majority of the House with bipartisan support.” 
 
 “The president is glad that the leaders were able to engage in this useful discussion this evening,” Carney added. 
 
 (PHOTOS: D.C. closes up shop) 
 
 “They will not negotiate,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said. “We had a nice conversation, a polite conversation, but at some point we’ve got to allow the process that our founders gave us to work out.” 
 
 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also didn’t budge. 
 
 Reid repeated what the president has long maintained, that Democrats won’t barter over Republican-desired changes to Obamacare with the twin swords of the shutdown and a possible default on the nation’s credit hanging over their heads. 
 
 “We are locked in tight on Obamacare,” Reid said to reporters gathered in the driveway outside the West Wing. 
 
 (POLITICO's full government shutdown coverage) 
 
 So, the federal government will remain closed on Thursday as the nation’s leaders refuse to deal with one another in real terms, preferring to deliver missives in the form of letters, press conferences and, now, even a small group pow-wow with no staff allowed in the room. 
 
 When asked, Reid declined to say why it took 80 minutes to conclude that no progress could be made. 
 
 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in a bind on the fiscal fight because he’s in a tough reelection race, released a statement calling the meeting “cordial but unproductive” and showing solidarity with Boehner’s position that the House and Senate should open a formal dialogue on resuming government funding. 
 
 “While I appreciated the opportunity to speak directly with the president about this pressing issue, I was disappointed that he had little interest in negotiating a solution or in encouraging Senate Democrats to agree to the House request for a conference,” he said. 
 
 (POLITICO interview: Rep. Steve King predicts longer shutdown) 
 
 Before the meeting, Obama had told CNBC that he wasn’t in any mood to negotiate on what he considers to be core responsibilities of Congress and will talk about other issues once the government is open and the debt-limit increase is secured. 
 
 “Until we get that done,” Obama said, “we are not going to engage in a series of negotiations.” 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden, who has been a wheeler-dealer on past budget agreements, attended the meeting but did not address reporters afterward. 
 
 The Oval Office session came as the federal government remains shut down for the second day, with no end in sight. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers remained furloughed, and numerous government services have been temporarily ended as Obama and congressional Democrats face off against GOP leaders over the future of Obamacare. 
 
 (WATCH: Veterans storm World War II Memorial) 
 
 In between the interview and the congressional meeting, the president huddled with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who has said the date for the government defaulting on its debt — absent congressional action — is Oct. 17. 
 
 Increasingly, it appears that Washington’s leaders will have to come up with a budget plan that both reopens the government and raises the debt limit. 
 
 Republicans said beforehand that they welcomed the president’s invitation to the White House, as Obama, Reid and Pelosi have refused up to this point to accept anything other than a “clean” continuing resolution that funds the government. 
 
 “We’re pleased the president finally recognizes that his refusal to negotiate is indefensible,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement. “It’s unclear why we’d be having this meeting if it’s not meant to be a start to serious talks between the two parties.” 
 
 (WATCH: Protesters interrupt GOP presser on Capitol Hill) 
 
 If there was a small sliver of optimism, it was in Reid’s recounting of a portion of the meeting. Democrats offered to talk with Boehner about a range of other issues, including health care and farming laws, if he would first pass a “clean” extension of government funding. But, Reid said, Boehner replied “no,” insisting that the two chambers try to strike an agreement on the basic spending bill. Many Republicans now think it’s in their interest to cut a much bigger deal on spending, taxes, and the debt limit, and It is not inconceivable that a deal could be worked out that would involve a two- or three-step process in which the government would be opened, the debt cap raised and a long-term budget agreement triggered. 
 
 A breakaway group of more than a dozen House Republicans have indicated they would vote for a clean government spending bill — without language aimed at Obamacare — if it came to the floor. But they have so far not joined Democrats in procedural votes that would frustrate the GOP majority. 
 
 Reps. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) are working on a bipartisan continuing resolution, or CR, to fund the government for six months, which would include a repeal of the medical device tax, according to several lawmakers and aides. Dent was working the floor during the afternoon votes to try to get support from fellow Republicans.
– During a White House meeting on Oct. 2, a day into the shutdown, John Boehner slipped out for a smoke. Barack Obama followed him, demanding a private explanation for the shutdown. "John, what happened?" he asked. "I got overrun, that's what happened," Boehner replied. That anecdote kicks off Politico's behind-the-scenes look at the crisis. The Wall Street Journal has one too—with different bits of insider gossip. Here are the most interesting tidbits from both: Obama and Harry Reid decided on their no-negotiation strategy over the summer, believing that Boehner could never unite his fractured caucus behind anything. Republicans never believed the pair would stick to it. Boehner and Reid initially struck a deal in which Boehner would pass a sequester-level budget with an ObamaCare-defunding rider that the Senate could simply strip out. Boehner assumed—incorrectly—that his caucus only wanted a show vote. Boehner's former chief of staff was feeding the White House intelligence, telling it that Boehner would have to fight up until the debt ceiling deadline. Reid also took to monitoring Twitter for hints on the GOP's next move—a sign of how badly communication was flowing. Many Republicans turned to Joe Biden, hoping he would intervene. Biden told them he'd been "sidelined … at the direction of the president," one rep says. Reid, bitter about the fiscal cliff deal Biden negotiated, had wanted him out. At one point, Boehner brought up the idea of a "grand bargain" at a White House meeting; Reid laughed in his face. When Paul Ryan joined the fray at an Oct. 10 meeting, he told Obama that he would "miss his moment" and derail his whole term if he didn't strike a deal. But he also made what White House aides called a "Freudian slip," saying, "We’re going to have six weeks to negotiate the debt limit." That night, aides to Boehner, Cantor, and Obama began talking about a broader budget deal, and agreed to talk more in the morning. The White House never called. When Mitch McConnell finally decided he had to broker the deal, he partnered with Lamar Alexander—angering Susan Collins, who had worked far harder on the process, only to see her own deal torpedoed. McConnell picked Alexander because he had better conservative credentials, and was pals with Reid confidante Chuck Schumer. Alexander and Schumer brokered the deal behind the scenes, then passed it off to Reid and McConnell. McConnell tells the Washington Post that he saw himself as a backup quarterback thrown into the game. "I felt like I was on the two-yard line, I had a pretty weak offensive line, and the best I could hope for was to try to punt." Boehner made one last-ditch attempt to pass an alternative. "We're running out of time," he told his caucus. "Your 'no' vote has consequences." But as Reid and Obama had predicted, he couldn't convince them. With the ball back in McConnell and Reid's court, McConnell made a few last-minute demands. Reid rejected them. It took all of 15 minutes for McConnell to call back and accept Reid's terms.