Most everyone here has read the Research 2000 poll of GOP voters. There's no need to belabor the point that 3:1 majorities think that Obama is a socialist and that Palin is more qualified to be POTUS than he is. A plurality of that group wants to impeach Obama, and a sizeable majority questions his citizenship.
Today's NYT article about the latest in a long line of WH attempts to engage the GOP, accordingly, did nothing for my digestion as I read it over breakfast:
The president has invited members of Congress from both parties for a meeting at the White House next Tuesday, the first of the bipartisan brainstorming sessions that Mr. Obama proposed during the State of the Union address. Republicans will also be invited to the White House this weekend to watch the Super Bowl, as well as to Camp David and other venues for social visits.
Interestingly enough, this approach is portrayed as a strategy shift:
The outreach represents a marked shift in both strategy and substance by Mr. Obama and his allies at a time when Democrats are adapting to the loss of their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate and the president has been losing support among independent voters.
The White House’s goal is to show voters that Mr. Obama is willing to engage Republicans rather than govern in a partisan manner while forcing Republicans to make substantive compromises or be portrayed as obstructionist given their renewed power to block almost all legislation in the Senate.
Inviting Goopers over to watch the Super Bowl is a new strategy? Isn't that what he did last year? The newly elected POTUS went out of his way to socialize w/ Goopers upon taking office, and he was repaid by lockstep opposition to the Stim.
Have people already forgotten how HCR stalled in the Senate during the "Gang of 6" circle jerk? While Baucus was trying to attain a "compromise" w/ Enzi and Grassley, Grassley was adopting the "deather" meme in an IA stump speech. Meanwhile, the teabaggers were rallying and making mischief at town hall meetings in a series of states.
Forget about reading the Research 2000 poll data--didn't anyone at the WH ever read Peanuts when they were kids? Do none of them ever recall the continuous saga of Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football? Has it occurred to them who they are and who the GOP is in this saga?
Sadly, things appear to be even worse in the Senate. I have nothing to add to boswern's superb diary about Dodd's cave-in on financial regulatory reform. I merely note that, 16 months after a Wall Street bailout that has proven to fleece the many to benefit the (very) few, the Senate Dems still haven't gotten a regulatory bill out of committee. Even worse, the Finance Chair is already surrendering in advance. The WH has finally had the good sense to make Paul Volcker their public point man on this politically and economically critical issue, but the Senate Dems are still trapped in their long-standing Stockholm Syndrome.
Einstein's definition of insanity comes to the fore once again here. The WH plans on repeating an approach that was tried and found to be wanting 1 year ago. The Senate Dems are repeating the same approach that has been tried and found to be wanting for, oh, about 30 years now. Exactly what was the point of the 2008 elections?