I've followed the debate pretty carefully, and have never seen any real evidence that Obama thought he'd be able to get House Republican support; other than a couple of blind quotes from Obama aides in places like the Wall Street Journal, there's never been any evidence of that at all. The idea that including tax cuts in the package indicated a lust for Republican support, or a concession to their views, ignores the rather important fact that the bulk of tax cuts were for implementation of Obama's central campaign pledge of a tax cut benefitting low-to-moderate income workers. The small batch of business tax cuts in the package didn't follow GOP ideology at all, and were likely aimed at securing (successfully) business-community support, not that of House Republicans. When House GOPers asked for real concessions, Obama turned them down.

The Republicans are taking a gamble that the economy isn't just going to bounce back in the near term. And I think that's a smart bet.

I've always thought that this emphasis on process as opposed to results was a waste of time - and when the economic collapse really came into full relief for most Americans my belief that effective governance was more important that worrying about hurt feelings only grew that much stronger.

Ironically, had this been a super bloody and nasty battle won over a better package that ended up really delivering results "immediately", I think that would have really elevated Obama and the Dems to a level that we probably can't even imagine - unless you are old enough to really remember FDR's popularity.  

Americans respect people who lead with conviction.  That was all the "magic" Bush ever had with the public and had he made better decisions with respect to governance he would have gone down as one of the best rather than the worst imo.  For some reason Democrats don't understand this nuance from what I can tell.

This stimulus package falls short by most accounts.  The bulk of the money isn't even released until FYs 2010 and 2011 which begs the question - "What are they waiting for?"  Surely, they don't think that this problem will solve itself with minimal government intervention do they?  I don't really even see them creating a floor with what is proposed and now we're hearing reports that the Senate Republicans are going to amend it ruthlessly.  So now what?

Some people argue that a failed mutilated bill will be good for Obama and Democrats because it will show how bad the Republicans are, but I think that it will only anger people and make them think that Obama and Dems are no more valuable to them than the Republicans were.  They'll just think Obama is too weak to fix their problems and they'll find the strong voice in the political crowd (who will be some Republican telling them Rush Limaugh-esque lies about ineffective government, immigrants and tax cuts) and attach themselve to that person instead.

Silver writes that "It is not clear why they would want this: the Republican brand, even under the best of circumstances, is not likely to be significantly rehabilitated by 2010. . . "