Obama’s Idea of Bipartisanship

Noam Scheiber addresses complaints that Obama is too conciliatory, too keen on the idea of bipartisanhip for bipartisanship’s sake:

But complaints like this miss what’s been accomplished these last few weeks: Obama has completely defined the stimulus narrative on his own terms. To the average voter, Obama has been earnest and conciliatory while the Republicans have been cynical, self-serving, and puerile. Which, if the past is any guide, is precisely the moment he’ll start playing hardball.

Republicans will protest that Obama and Congressional Democrats have trampled on the Senate compromise and unilaterally re-imposed their liberal priorities. They’ll sprinkle in a collection of shopworn clichés, like “behind closed doors,” and “dead of night.” But, in the end, it won’t matter. The media, having already proclaimed Obama the Beltway’s only bona fide bipartisan, is hardly going to rewrite the narrative at this late stage.  And no senator who voted for the bill in the first time around is going to want to explain why he or she suddenly became “anti-job.” By yesterday evening, you could almost see it dawn on Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell that he’d been played. “This package, had it been developed in genuine consultation, could have had a different result,” McConnell bleated, following a Senate vote that paved the way for the conference committee to convene. “But at the end of the day, it was–the administration decided–let the package be developed in Congress by the majority.” Right, Mitch. Tell it to someone who cares.

Too true. The electorate is in a mood for government to do something and, to be honest, it doesn’t much care what that something is so long as it seems big and bold and dramatic. Will it work? Well, that’s another question entirely. Indeed, Joe Biden  – candid as ever – makes a Washington gaffe* by admitting that there’s a 30% chance everything will go wrong.