Reality sinks in

It had been the great promise of Barack Obama. From the day he burst onto the national stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he sold a dream not only of bridging a racial divide, but of bringing the blue states and the red states into a single mythical, post-partisan United States. It was the thing that Hillary Rodham Clinton was said to be incapable of, as a polarizing figure whose politics were forged in the divisive culture wars of the 1960s. It was a sales pitch that made John McCain scoff with particular bitterness as he pointed to the deep political scars he wore from years of trying to forge bipartisan deals in Congress while Obama had been writing memoirs and voting the party line.

Things started out well at first. In his first days in office, Obama kept on George W. Bush’s defence secretary, Bob Gates, and eventually added two more Republicans to head the departments of Transportation and Commerce. He surrounded himself with bipartisan economic advisers. He had dinner with conservative pundits at the home of syndicated columnist George Will, while liberals got a meeting the next day—without food. But as soon as he began work on his first legislative effort—a massive stimulus package to revive the rapidly deteriorating economy—he couldn’t bridge the partisan divide, and steered right into it. It was far from the only stumble during Obama’s first weeks on the job. In fact, the man who had entered office with a message of hope and change quickly found himself at odds not only with Republicans but also members of his own party and liberal supporters on a number of issues—confronting the gulf between some of his lofty campaign promises and cold, hard reality.

Nowhere was that divide between high expectations and the real world more evident than in the nasty fight over Obama’s proposed stimulus package. Although Democrats now controlled both houses of Congress and the White House for the first time since 1994, the President had said he wanted to bring Republicans on board to craft a bipartisan bill that would be balanced between government spending and tax cuts. With a price tag of more than US$800 billion, there was presumably room enough for something for everyone. It was not to be: as both parties in Congress ended up hurling accusations of partisanship at each other, the Republicans almost succeeded in derailing the process. In the end, the measure passed the House of Representatives on Jan. 28 without a single Republican vote, and a modified $838-billion package squeaked by in the Senate only after days of wrangling to win a scant three Republican votes. House and Senate negotiations must now bridge several significant differences between the bills without blowing up the fragile Senate compromise.

The rejection by Republicans wasn’t just an embarrassment—it was a shot straight at the heart of Obama’s appeal. Indeed, his bipartisan strategy had looked increasingly risky for the Democrats, who had a mandate for change, with Republicans supposedly relegated to a rump minority, licking their wounds and arguing over how to begin the slow climb out of irrelevance. Instead, even GOP members surprised themselves with how effectively they tripped up the new guy. Obama stretched out his hand—and gave Republicans what House minority whip Eric Cantor has since called a “shot in the arm.”

It came right at the beginning of the process when, in spite of Obama’s call for bipartisanship, congressional Democrats began drafting the stimulus bill—without Republicans being in on the exercise. On Jan. 27, before the package was to be voted on in the House, Obama made a great show of journeying to Capitol Hill to have lunch with Republican members and listen to their concerns. In the days leading up to the vote, he pushed House Democrats to make compromises. When Republicans took aim at a provision that would have expanded Medicaid coverage of family planning services to low-income people, Obama asked the House to strip it—even though the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would save the government $200 million over five years in pregnancy and post-natal-related expenses. When Republicans ridiculed planned spending to improve the National Mall, Obama had that knocked out, too. Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey called Obama’s efforts “the most deliberative, most inclusive process in Washington that I have probably seen in at least my 17 years here.”

But it wasn’t enough. The Republican House members gushed about the “cordial” and “substantive” conversation with Obama, and praised his willingness to listen. But before they had even sat down to meet him, Republican House leaders had announced they would be asking their members to not vote for the bill, which they said still had too much spending and not enough tax cuts.

When the action moved next to the Senate, Republicans continued to chafe at the inclusion of a variety of spending projects that had languished on Democratic wish lists for years. Republican critics of massive spending filled the airwaves with talk of “porkulus” and “boondoggles.” Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina held up bar graphs of projected debt, and asked, “Who is going to pay for all this?” Meanwhile, so many amendments were being offered and voted on in a mad scramble to win Republican votes that it was hard to keep track of how many billions were being spent on what. While the economy reeled, Obama seemed to lose control of the conversation.

Although Republicans praised the President for his outreach and attempts at bipartisanship, they faulted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats for not involving them in the drafting of the bill to make true bipartisanship possible. Pelosi retorted that by allowing Republicans to offer amendments in the committee process, she was giving them more opportunity to make their case than Republicans had given Democrats when the GOP controlled the House.