Jonathan Martin writes that President Obama couldn't earn a single House Republican vote for the stimulus bill this evening despite his personal visit with the caucus on the Hill yesterday. Thus does a central conceit of the President's (and of every new President's) flutter away into oblivion. He has persistently dismissed partisan disagreement as illegitimate or petty (most recently in his Inaugural) even though vibrant disagreement and debate are the symptoms of healthy democracies. In that same vain he has touted his post-partisanship and ability to bridge chasms between those who disagree. He was a transcendental figure, and would be a transcendental President.
This was a mirage. The President's meet-and-greet with House Republicans was a commendable gesture but it was just that, a gesture. Patting the heads of Republicans is not enough to get their support or basic acquiescence, especially when nothing is done to address their concerns in subsequence. The facts of the matter were the same after the meeting as they were before, and that was that the "stimulus" he was lobbying for is an opportunistic pretense through which Democrats are pushing through reckless spending for their own pet causes. There is nothing in it that any Republican – or any responsible, candid observer for that matter –can support.
President Obama cannot be blamed for trying get a little without giving anything. But neither can he realistically expect to get anything without giving something in return. That is the lesson of this evening's vote.
Of course he doesn't need any Republicans for ultimate passage, but if he wants shared responsibility for this abomination of appropriation he's going to have to make it a lot less abominable. Otherwise he won't be the transcendental figure he fashions himself as and he and Democrats will be all alone with responsibility for their actions. Such is real life. You can't be post-partisan and still be straight-partisan at the same time. Not even if you're Barack Obama.
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