As many truly intelligent people as there were - and are - on the Obama team, such a plan could have been - should have been - gamed, primed and ready to roll out...on Day One - complete with charts, PowerPoint and interactive graphs.

Obama faces a simple math problem: he needs to Republican votes to get anything out of the Senate.  Since 90% of the GOP Senate is going to have nothing to do with any health care bill, passing anything requires winning 2 votes from the 3 or 4 Senators who might for vote anything resembling progressive legislation.  The problem is those 4 Senators are insulated.  Collins in particular just ran for relection and clobbered a well funded opponent.  

Have Rupert Murdoch over for dinner.  Commiserate on his actually having lost money in the most recent quarter.  Offer to help him lose some more, faster.

Now, does Obama have enough juice with the public to make arena appearances and get some mojo going to instill fear in the Repubs? I don't know -- apparently, just by speaking about the Obama Stimulus Bill a little bit and making the two trips, approval ratings from the public went up.

But since Obama himself had seemed to criticize and talk down the House version (not bipartisan enough, give the Repubs more of what they want), it was not unreasonable that the public would think it was not a good bill. Like, d'uh, especially since the president of the party of the House majority which passed the bill said it wasn't!

Seriously, when the president talks down his own freaking bill? How else would a rational public react? Must not be a good bill, if their own prez doesn't like it, right?

I would say Repubs don't fear him as long as he places achieving "bipartisanship" above achieving the programs he told people he would implement for them. Repubs can just hold him hostage by saying not "bipartisan" enough. Remains to be seen whether he can fight for principles and others, not just his own success.

Further, saving jobs is just as important as creating new ones and a lot of this bill is focused on keeping jobs for folks like teachers, nurses, state employees.  you can have all the construction in the world but that won't be enough to close states' budget gaps and prevent layoffs.

Third, the problem we have right now is that there is about a $2 trillion hole in the GDP over the next two years.  We need to try to fill that hole.  The bill we have - $719 billion - won't be nearly enough to do that.  But the only way to do that is to get as much money out as many ways as possible - again this involves diversified spending.  We can't get $2 trillion in infrastructure projects - it just can't be done.

Fourth, investing in green energy does create jobs right now (through R&D, through production of the technology - manufacturing jobs!- , through retrofitting buildings, etc).  But it also sets us up for future growth.  I like building and improving bridges, but once they are done, they're not directly creating any new jobs (aside from the overall benefit of having a better infrastructure).  Green energy can pay dividends down the road - and if it keeps us from pouring money into the oil fields of the middle east, so much the better.

That said, I'm not happy with this bill.  There are too many tax elements that are not stimuluative and too little in assistance to states.  But I'm fine with diversified spending - that's the only way we can push out enough money to make a dent in the GDP hole - I believe there needed to be much more of it.

Honestly, I just want SOME funding for infrastructure projects a.s.a.p. before the company I work for goes under.  Which could happen any day now... But this bill won't be nearly enough to get everything done.  Which I guess I am fine with as long as there is bill #2, and bill #3, etc...

Eventually we will have (hopefully) Franken and then we only need 1 rethuglican senator.

Gonna be pretty strong stuff -- and, when the Repubs have the MCM basically on their side regarding spending for social and/or environmental isses, oh my. Katie, bar the door! The Repubs will be off and running with "fiscal responsibility" and "we can't afford it" talking points.

All those things "later on" might be 22nd Century, if at all. Maybe, if we do go into a deep depression then Obama can still talk about spending as good for the country.

But, the MCMers for the most part have theirs, so will they even support such things then?

Mark Shields was on Inside Washington on Sunday saying that the WH was "dropping a dime" on the speaker, and, for Shields, was visibly angry. His jowls were actually shaking.  He said it was all the Hill, people were buzzing about it.

Not good srategy or tactic, as Obama and Rahm will need those Dem lib votes in the future. Unless he wants to govern with Repub and Blue Dog votes....

Brad Delong wrote some quick notes on the Obama program for the Big Bankster Boiz, and in points one and two noted that the WH was working to have it called the Geithner program, thus deflecting responsibility from Obama, and also having Axelrod put about that it was all Geithner, thus laying groundwork for blaming Geithner if it fails.

Summers, per ProPublica, was also a WH pointman on telling the House committee chairs what Obama wanted.

Please, the buck stops with the president. Unless he's being handled and fooled by his advisers, which is very scary as well.

Rahm ought to have been more of a fighter, though, as he was in Congress.  

I think the problem is the confusion of campaigning vs. governing.  The method of governing seems to be campaigning, so maybe Axelrove is really Chief of Staff?

This was supposed to be a chance to use one for the advantage of the nation overall, not just the uberwealthy. But Obama seems to want to preserve the Big Bankster Boiz personla wealth and standing.

Perhaps to join them? Bcz they were early big money backers for his prez campaign? Bcz he'a a Center Right cautions politician?