Posted on 01/29/2009 12:52:57 PM PST by shielagolden
Obama, allies move stimulus fight into high gear WASHINGTON (AFP) – After a failed "charm offensive," US President Barack Obama and his allies unleashed a hard-hitting campaign Thursday to break defiant Republicans' thus-far united opposition to his economic stimulus plan.
The strategy called for millions of labor union members to telephone Republicans from hard-hit states, coupled with an aggressive television advertising campaign targeting potentially vulnerable Republican senators.
The ad featured Obama's warnings about the economic crisis he inherited from George W. Bush and invited viewers in Maine, New Hampshire, Alaska, and Iowa to tell their senators "support the Obama plan for jobs not the failed policies of the past," according to the script.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Actually, it’s either unanimous or it’s not.
Technically, a united GOP can stop this through filibuster (unless Reid changes the rule).
Therefore, defections are very meaningful. It would be a huge victory for Obama if he can break the filibuster.
It will come down to the Maine Senators, McCain/Graham and the usual bunch. I haven’t much hope.
‘We will fight bravely, but outcomes will be pre-ordained.’
True..but a couple of points.
1. Don’t know about anyone else, but six weeks ago I wouldn’t have bet on House Republicans putting up ANY fight, let alone unanimously doing so.
2. Yep, the outcome was ‘preordained’. Which tells us what odds the Obama administration puts on it actually ‘working’ given the effort to get Republican support onboard, and the anger when it did not happen.
They KNOW it won’t do a damn thing for the worsening economy.
It passed in the House but the Senate won’t vote on it for a week or more. He needs to co-opt some Republican support there so he can claim it’s bi partisan. The Senate vote will be a real test. It will pass but the rel question is how many Rep votes will be for it.
No, just having to expend political capital to stave off a filibuster at this stage is a big loss.
Have never seen it happen this fast. I didn’t like Clinton but it took me longer then a week to loathe the man. The minute ZERO said “I Won” all bets were off. He is in charge so he can live with it! We need to prop up the Republican Senators to vote NO!
Fight back!
You’re right, I meant to say “it will be spun as a major win..”
#1 - True! - I was frankly hoping for less than 12 ‘defections’ as a ‘good marker’. ZERO is awesome. It’s also a sign of how badly the Democrats in Congress are over-reaching.
It would have been easy for them to craft even a big-spending bill that had a lot of GOP support, just due to the ‘we have to do something’ factor. Instead, they Christmas-treed it into a parody of bad govt appropriations.
#2 - It’s still curious, and perhaps a mistake, that they dont merely want to govern, they want to somehow destroy the GOP as an effective opposition. It has already failed, thank God.
Didn’t I read that some unions were threatening to go on strike?
They’ll have plenty of time to make phone calls.
Let's hope the Pubbies have the intestinal fortitude to ride this out.
Remember, he's just a puppet.
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/01/29/mitch-mcconnell-needs-our-help/
...only five of some 220 Republican Senators and Representatives voted for it. Hardly bipartisan and I doubt it would provide the cover they crave.”
No FRiend, if even three Senators vote yes on the Republican side they will be cited as a triumph of the almighty self-anointed 0ne.
Praise Obama.
Watch.
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/01/29/mitch-mcconnell-needs-our-help/
This is a Megapork bill, which will do absolutely nothing to help the economic problems for which Obama and his friends are largely responsible.
I think the number of voters who are asking themselves ‘Ahhh, what did we do?’ is growing exponentially right now.
If Obama thought this boondoggle had an even chance of improving the economy, he would relish the Republicans handing him a huge campaign issue by not getting on board.
Of course, that's why they're currently better at politics than the GOP is.
Republicans can count votes delivered to them by labor unions on one hand. I am sure that they will take all those calls seriously.
“The interesting thing is that they (the financial institutions) don’t come to the Congress, I mean the Federal Reserve buys them out, they own it. We as tax payers now own Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and know one knows how much that will cost. They don’t come to the Congress, we don’t have appropriations, it’s done by secret government, private individuals behind the scenes maneuvering and manipulating and trying to patch things up. While in the meantime, I’m sure there’s a few people making a couple of bucks out of this whole thing.”
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