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After winning control of the Senate and boosting their numbers in the House last fall, Republicans devised a moniker for their dual majorities that could pass for a new C-SPAN reality show: "America's New Congress."

Branding is one thing, but governing is another, as the party has discovered very quickly in the new year.

And so Senate Republicans have joined their House counterparts for a rare joint retreat in this chocolate-producing outpost with the goal of smoothing internal differences that threaten to disrupt a strategy to counter President Obama in the next two years.

That starts with the two most senior Republicans: House Speaker John A. Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who by personality and necessity are taking different approaches to bring their rank-and-file along on issues including immigration, the economy and healthcare.

After the first full week of Republican control of Congress, the diverging paths are clear: While the House quickly passed a tweak to the Affordable Care Act, approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and a confrontational Homeland Security funding package that includes provisions to block Obama's immigration plan, McConnell was presenting an experiment in "regular order" congressional speak for the slow grind of nudging a bill, in this case about Keystone, through often cumbersome procedural hurdles.

Whether the frenetic House will have patience for the methodical Senate is one question. Whether conservatives will tolerate the consensus approach McConnell needs to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate is another.

What emerged Thursday was a commitment to approve a GOP budget in the first 100 days of the new Congress an ambitious if unsurprising starting point, given that doing so is a legal requirement.

"At the end of the 100 days, I'd like to have our budget done," said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield. "Getting the budget done is the start of everything else."

Republican leaders also mentioned other top to-do-list items. The Senate wants to finish its work on Keystone and begin considering an Iran sanctions package. The House, meanwhile, will proceed with a crush of deregulation bills.

But trying to bring the budget into balance within 10 years remains on top.

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In Republican Congress, two divergent strategies at work