Anything Obama did would have been "controversial." The GOP made sure of that. Obama's mistake was wasting time trying to work with them. Any fool could see they weren't interested.
That wasn't true for the first 6 months. Most of the GOP officials were taken aback at the magnitude of Obama's victory and his win in states like IN and NC. There was substantial fear that total obstruction would be met with more electoral losses. It was only in the August 09 recess at local town hall meetings that the Tea Party showed it's strength pushing back against those members who sought to compromise with the WH. The August recess also marked the decline in productivity of the bipartisan six Senators working on a compromise on health care reform.
Given that timeline, I still think that Trende's insight that a split stimulus might have been played better is worth consideration.
The opposition party doesn't vote for your bill and that's all their fault?
I see no one wants to address the fact that Reagan's signature 1981 economic legislation got overwhelming bipartisan support.
The fact is that the Democrats see themselves as "the natural ruling party", and yet 2009 was the first time in 16 years they had a new president and control of Congress. Moreover, unlike the GOP which has a high rate of turnover, virtually the entire Dem Party leadership was -- incredibly -- unchanged from 1993 to 2009. These were people who were nursing many years of grudges. (Another result of the ossification of the Dem Party is that now we have a record age gap between Repubs and Dems in Congress, with Repubs averaging five years younger.)
With the extreme Left in full control of the Democratic Party in 2009 (and today), there was no inclination to "compromise" with a GOP that many thought was about to go extinct anyway.
Have you been listening to the things that the Republicans have been saying!? They are actively not compromising! It's not that they're willing and Obama's not,
it's the exact opposite!
