President Obama, like many presidents before him, would like to have it both ways: get broad bipartisan support for his domestic agenda without compromising it. Of course, in the real world, politics doesn’t work that way – you can charm, cajole, browbeat, bribe and blackmail your way to a handful of votes here and there, but unless (like Reagan) you have a substantial faction of the opposition party that is philosophically closer to you than to your critics, or unless (like FDR and LBJ) you have so many votes you don’t need the opposition, you’re going to have to give something to get bipartisan support.
And thus far, especially on the colossal pork barrel masquerading as a “stimulus” bill, Obama has made his decision, or perhaps just allowed Congressional liberals to make it for him: it’s the Democrats’ way or the highway:
As the president, he had told Kyl after the Arizonan raised objections to the notion of a tax credit for people who don’t pay income taxes, Obama told Cantor this morning that “on some of these issues we’re just going to have ideological differences.”
The president added, “I won. So I think on that one, I trump you.”
The results thus far have been predictable: