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Sticking It to Rahm
Emanuel, working with his old boss and ally, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, made it easy for the Republicans to resist. Every penny in the more than 600-page bill came from a Democratic wish list of pork that dated back to the beginning of the Bush administration. "They were limited the last two years by the White House keeping firm on the cap for each bill," a congressional source reported to me, "and Nancy Pelosi told them all to send their ideas to David Obey [chairman of the House Appropriations Committee], and he just put them together in one great big earmark."
"We won the election, we wrote the bill," said Pelosi as many times as she could to an open microphone. But what was happening away from the microphone made it even easier for the Republicans to hold together. All they had to do was bring up Rahm Emanuel.
“Rahm hates us and lets us know it, and we hate him back,” said a senior Republican. “If we had gotten together in a room and tried to write a bill that put the taxpayer together with the Republican Party, we could not have come up with this thing. It is too unbelievable.”
Rahm Emanuel is the Republicans’ favorite piñata. Overwound and overbearing, the Chicago congressman helped destroy the Republican majority in 2006 when he acted as chief fund raiser, candidate recruiter, and stump speaker. On the night the Democrats took the House back after 12 years of Republican rule, he praised himself for delivering a “thumpin’.” Now that he’s Obama’s chief of staff, the Republicans have him to poke at for at least four years.
After the vote, President Obama, at Emanuel’s suggestion, hosted a bipartisan reception at the White House for congressional leaders from both houses. John Boehner joked that he felt like the “snake at the garden party.” But the Republican leaders were not silent.
“We gave the president what he asked for, a temporary stimulus bill,” said a senior Republican, “at half the cost of what the Democrats wrote. He knows it. They handed him a monster of spending. Rahm did this, and now he takes this to the Senate. Does Rahm want to be an honest broker, or does he want to be the guy who socks Republicans in the face? He isn’t helping with the Democrats, and he’s hurting with the Republicans.”
“Polling showed us that when we took the vote, independent support for the bill was collapsing,” a senior Republican said. “Democratic support was climbing while the independents ran away.”
“What does Rahm do? Is he going to go to the Democrats and say ‘no’ to this? Or is he going to make his president sign it?”
Emanuel’s answer to the Republican shutout is to announce that the Democratic Party will target Republicans by running campaigns in their districts to tell the voters that their representative “voted against 4 million jobs.”
Eight days after Obama’s inauguration, the partisan battles are at full tilt.
John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
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finderj
Wow. Do you mean to imply that the sole reason Republicans voted against the stimulus package was because they have a grudge against the Democrats and the way some top Democrat leaders have spoken about the victory? Do you mean to imply that the bill as it is today is perfect and required nothing more than has already been presented to Congress and tht only evil, selfish, self-serving politicians who put getting elected above the country's best interests would vote against this bill?
Here's my problem with the bill: 600 trillion, 700 trillion, 800 trillion, 819 trillion, 825 trillion...when does it stop?
woodnut
Obama needs to get rid of Rahm Emmanual, all the lobbyists that he said he would not hire, and Sanjay Gupta and all us Dems would like him again.
woodnut
Nancy Pelosi is not a plus for the democratic party.
ScottRose
Obama's core instincts in wanting to be an inclusive leader are noble but do not correspond to the realities.
The Republicans nominated and supported Sarah Palin with a straight face.
In their politicking around this bill, they did not in the least take into account recommendations from centrist economists.
In other words, they are not serious about taking prompt measures to ameliorate the economy. They were, however, serious about getting Obama to cave on the inclusion of free contraceptives to poor people.
Obama has made every attempt to move beyond the way Republicans have been since the 1990s, but they refuse to move beyond themselves, even though it is plain that doing so would be for the better. They are addicted to their disproven theories like a crackhead to the pipe.
Their judgment now in the face of the economic crisis is no better than it was in nominating and supporting Sarah Palin.
VinnyKolya
This is a rather limp piece. It rehashes the common mantra about Rahm Emanuel ("Overwound and overbearing") and yet all that can really be said for sure is that Republicans don't like him (but apparently they don't dislike him enough to say it on the record).
He helped beat them in the 2006 election? Wow, as if they weren't trying to beat the Democrats. Elections are the time for politics: after elections is the time for governing.
Notice how even this piece credits Rahm Emanuel for bringing the President to see the Republican congressmen on two occasions, even suggesting the bipartisan meeting after the vote, in which they had all spurned President Obama's overtures by voting unanimously against the bill. If anything, it sounds like Rahm Emanuel is behaving less partisan than his '90s bad-boy reputation would suggest. (Not to mention the fact that he has taken one of the most demanding jobs around-so demanding that the typical tenure is about two-and-a-half yea-and is sacrificing time with his family.)
I think it is weak for any Republican to suggest that they voted against this bill because of Rahm Emanuel. This piece, basically serving as a mouthpiece for anonymous Republicans bad-mouthing Rahm Emanuel after their unanimously impotent vote, is pathetic.
Next time a congressman wants to whisper in your ear, don't quote him unless he's willing to put his name on it.
Eileener
Finderj,
I could not agree more. Part of me hoped that the reason the Republicans were against the stimulus was because they were returning to what they once stood for. The other part of me knew this move was purely political. How can these so called public servants squander at a time when the country is in dire straights? From the sounds of this source, they were not open to even considering voting for the stimulus because of petty politics. I know high school students who show more maturity. For the sake of the Republican Party, they better hope that the stimulus fails because if it ends up passing and does what it is intended to do, they can forget 2010, much less 2012.
flyoverland
Ronald Reagan back from the dead couldn't have sold this bill to the Republicans. This irresponsible bill has more pork than a Lutheran Suasage Supper. Obama told his little girls they were the reason he was running for President. It seems odd he wants to stick them and their generation with the bill for this porkfest.
vankuyk
I too think that Pelosi is an unsophisticated, childish, unprofessional person. She is a bad leader and has not helped Obama at all. He should somehow get rid of her.
vankuyk
This is not about Rahm, this about Pelosi!
joymars
Put the family planning benefit back into the package. To h. with the Reeps.
mtg-x12
With the economy in the tank, the Republican message is ... We Don't Like Rahm.
It's good to know where their priorities lay.
dixie-chik
So the GOP chooses to let businesses and people nationwide suffer because they hate the Chief of Staff? Lame.
tomfarr
The bill that came out of the House was simply TERRIBLE as
stimulus. Most of the spending would take place in 2010 and 2011. Pelosi is a moron, and an obnoxious one. Perhaps the Senate will write a bill that actually stimulates the economy and that Republicans can vote for.
Lotto1
It is always good to learn the Repubs are not only racists but anti-Semitic also. No matter who the personality are this was about Americans and if the Repubs couldn't see that they deserve to out of power.
bobcatgal
Look at the actual substance of the bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that only one-fifth of the bill will have any stimulative effect by 2010. This was just a vehicle for people to jam through their pet bills. This isn't going to do crap to address core economic problems. It is groundhog day all over again. And groundhog day is Monday - perfect timing! We'll be debating these same issues three months from now, just like we did in November. I'll we'll have is another trillion dollars in debt to show for it. Wise up, people! Don't let your admiration for Obama cloud your reading of the facts.
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