Obama's aides meanwhile insisted his historic health reform drive was not dead, after Massachusetts voters handed the late Edward Kennedy's former Senate seat to Republicans, casting deep doubt over the president's sweeping agenda.

As he absorbed the stinging blow from voters, which sent shock waves through the Democratic Party in a key election year, Obama admitted that his need to tackle a flurry of crises had weakened his bond with US voters.

"If there's one thing that I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people," Obama told ABC News.

The president said that he had assumed that if he concentrated on making good policy decisions, voters would understand them, but instead they had become consumed by a "feeling of remoteness and detachment" from Washington.

"That I do think is a mistake of mine," Obama said, diagnosing a mood of anger and frustration in the United States over the grinding and lingering impact of the worst recession for decades.

Obama's admission was a far cry from the euphoria of his inauguration exactly one year ago, which drew a crowd of several million people, and the nationwide feeling of hope and change sparked by his 2008 election victory.

The special election upset in liberal Massachusetts on Tuesday was seen by some observers, and Republicans, as a referendum on Obama's first year and his embattled effort to pass historic health care reform.

That task became suddenly much harder when the Republicans snatched away the Democrats 60th Senate seat, allowing them to mount delaying tactics to slow and thwart White House bills.

In his interview, Obama cautioned that Democrats should not try to "jam" the legislation through in the short period before Republican senator-elect Scott Brown can get to Washington.

David Axelrod, Obama's top political advisor, said that despite the election shock, the president believed middle class Americans were hobbled by a crisis in health care, and would not give up the reform fight.

"It's not an option simply to walk away from a problem that's only going to get worse," he told MSNBC.

Republicans, however, styled their triumph as a clear sign that Americans wanted Obama to put the brakes on his reform drive, and to ditch the effort to remake US health care and begin again.

"This was in many ways a national referendum principally on the major issue we're wrestling with here in the Congress," said Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell also saw the election as vindication for his party's strategy of branding Obama as a traditional big-spending liberal who wants to expand the size of government.

"The American people have made it abundantly clear that they're more interested in shrinking unemployment than expanding government.

"They're tired of bailouts. They're tired of the government spending more than ever at a time when most people are spending less. And they don't want the government taking over health care."

Several leading Democrats, including Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey said it was time for a "breath" to consider options on health care.

The Massachusetts result made for a dismaying first anniversary of Obama's first year in office.

It followed two stinging Democratic defeats in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia where Obama won big in 2008, and comes as his personal approval ratings dip below 50 percent.

The shifting congressional mathematics, cast doubt over whether Obama will be able to enact big ticket items like global warming legislation, financial regulatory reform and immigration reform this year.

New York Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner, meanwhile, said Democrats had no choice but to heed the message delivered by voters in Massachusetts.

"If we're having a problem in ... Massachusetts, we're going to have problems all over the country," Weiner said on Fox Business channel.

"I think the president has to come down off the mountain a bit and help us sell to the American people these changes we're trying to make.

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