President Obama and House Republicans

In the months ahead, there will be all kinds of stories about the waste in the stimulus bill.

The GOP lost credibility on fiscal responsibility during the Bush years, and now the people trust Obama to do the responsible thing.  Four months down the road, that trust will turn sour.

I like it that the House Republicans took a stand on this one. 

The GOP in the House has no good strategy or tactic available currently. Obama knows he can push any bill he wants through both houses with zero input from house Reps. The only reason he has met with House opposition more times in 8 days than Bush did in 8 years is to control optics and who owns the "bipartisan" label.

Getting any bill through with no House GOP votes, while reaching out for bipartisanship is the best of all possible worlds for Obama and the Dems. Even one or two GOP votes messes up a very powerful meme. Commentators still refer to Clinton's 1993 budget 15 years later because, A) it worked as planned and B) it passed with no House GOP votes. Had even one GOP member voted for it, the political anecdote would have never developed.

Those on the right who are happy that "Obama owns this one" would be advise to consult Joel Chandler Harris' character Brer Rabbit who pleaded, "Please don't throw me in that briar patch."

Henke is right to say that obstructionism -- the present Republican strategy -- is a loser for them.  If they block it, they will be blamed for any new bad economic news.  If they fail to block it, they will be seen as completely irrelevant. 

Henke is wrong to say Republicans had no influence over the bill that passed yesterday.  Look in the left wing blogs -- Ezra Klein for example -- to see long lists of Republican changes.  These include more emphasis on tax cuts (Krugman also complained about this), and dropping capital restoration and family planning.  If Republicans oppose the package no matter what, the package will become more Democrat friendly. 

as is Igm above.  The block Republican vote against the package will not help them in the long run.  As Igm pointed out, Republican did have an effect on the bill.  But in voting uniformly against it, they removed Democratic incentives to compromise on any front.  So wait till the next bills.

It's true, Obama is donning the robe of bipartisanism.  The failure to compromise enough for Republican tastes is nit-picking in the image war, which they've lost for this round. 

Kos's logic appears to have prevailed.  If the plan works, Democrats will take the credit regardless of Republican votes; if it fails, Republican who had voted for it would go down with the ship in a primary challenge.   The better part of wisdom as straight political calculus goes was to vote against it. 

But if it succeeds the long-term effect on Republicans may not be all that great in many smaller ways. While the plan includes no "outright" earmarks, it may be possible to manipulate the contract award system to favor supporters and not favor detractors (unless there is a good Democratic challenge waiting in the wings for that district).  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The reality is that Obama's sycophants in the media were going to portray this episode as a psychodrama, with Obama as the bipartisan victim and Republicans as petty obstructionists, no matter what.  That's simply the way the media narrative works:

• Democrats who oppose a Republican agenda are always "asking questions" or "raising concerns"; there is no scenario in which they're engaged in nakedly tribal politics.
• Republicans who oppose a Democratic agenda are being "partisan" and "obstructionists"; there is no scenario in which their opposition is legitimate or good-faith.

Anybody who's been paying attention understands what's really going on, here -- i.e., that the Democrats are playing hardball to enact a pork-laden wish-list of liberal spending priorities in economic stimulus drag (see also, Rahm Emmanuel's admonition that you never let a crisis go to waste, because crises are opportunities to do things you otherwise couldn't), and Obama's meetings with Republicans and the scraps that Democrats have thrown across the aisle are all just mugging for the cameras.  But even though the Democrats couldn't even hold their own caucus (which is to say that the opposition to the "stimulus" was bipartisan), it'll never get reported that way, so for Obama to try and further the entirely predictable spin, and for a pathetic hack like Ben Smith to repeat it uncritically, is approximately as surprising as the sun rising in the east.

In other words, this was never about who wins the short-term PR battle.  That was never in any question.  Because of the partisan orientation of the media, Democrats always win the short-term PR battles short of one of them getting caught fucking the neighbor's cat -- and even then they'll get the benefit of the doubt (see also, Charlie Rangel and Chris Dodd).  If Obama peeled off significant Republican support he was going to get celebrated as a heroic uniter; since he didn't, he'll get sympathy as an earnest compromiser victimized by ideological meanies.

This is about -- and given Republicans' political predicament, has to be about -- the long game, in which there's quite a lot of upside but not much in the way of downside.  There are two gambles here: one, that the "stimulus" as currently constituted will fail to do much of anything except line the pockets of Democratic interest groups; and two, that the economy will continue to sputter for the next twelve to eighteen months.  The former is pretty much a foregone conclusion, inasmuch as only a fraction of the spending can be characterized as stimulus even under Keynesian criteria, and only a fraction of that money is actually going to be spent in the near-term.  The latter is a riskier proposition, but hardly off the board.  If the Republicans are right, and I think they are, then they'll have a terrific millstone to hang around Obama's, Reid's, and Pelosi's necks just in time for the 2010 midterms: "Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars spent and absolutely nothing to show for it.  Democrats told you they could fix the economy, but they delivered nothing but rewards to special interests and a more intrusive government so awash in red ink that George W. Bush looks like a piker in comparison."

If, on the other hand, the "stimulus" works (highly unlikely) or the economy recovers sooner than anybody anticipates (distinctly possible), then Obama and the Democrats will get credit as economic geniuses anyway regardless of how House Republicans voted yesterday.

Last night Obama had 11 top Reps and 11 top Dems over to his new crib for drinks after the party line vote. Thank God there's partying in the White House again. Between the absence of Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and Monica Lewinski I don't know how we survived the last eight years. Anyone get the impression that Obama is having as much fun as after work beer league softball?

Also, that he takes negotiation, competition, and winning about as seriously as most beer leaguers. We knew from the campaign that very little can make him angry or upset. Now I'm starting to learn that damn near everything makes him happy. He truly is the Democrat Reagan. Always smiling.

The GOP will not be labled as obstructionists unless they sucessfully filibuster a bill in the Senate. That does not seem very likely. As long as they let everything come up for a straight up or down vote, you can't honestly say they are obstructing anything just because the majority of GOP members vote against it.

The problem comes in the House where holding your caucus together, as Boehner did this week, buys you nothing but kudos and huzzahs from those who already vote Republican. It's preaching to the choir. And it risks shrinking your donor base.

All the donor payback goodies are inserted into bills in the House. If Boehner won't horse trade votes to get what Republican donors want inserted into bills, all that money will eventually flow to those who can get amendments put into bills. Namely Democrats. Green will always trump red or blue. It's really hard to sell a, "No we can't" message. I wouldn't give you a dime for it.

Electorally, Boehner is still making no inroads beyond the hard core base. And he only has two years before all of them face the music again. Sounds like we are well on our way to a replay of 2006 and 2008.

Hey there, just a reminder that when you quote news media or political papparazi (sp?), please provide a link.  Did this come from the Portland OR lefty alt weekly or the NYTimes. 

This matters quite a bit with context and rational discussion. 

Thanks!