Obama's bipartisan bid for stimulus

by Janet Hook and Peter Nicholas

President Obama travels to the Capitol today to meet with House and Senate Republicans, the latest in a series of high-profile efforts to reach across the aisle and make good on his campaign promise to swim against the partisan tide that has flooded Washington for decades.

So far, his gestures have shown few signs success, as Republicans have continued to snipe at his signature initiative--legislation to stimulate the economy--and even question the sincerity of his efforts. In the stimulus bill's first two tests last week, it passed two committees without a single Republican vote.

But whether or not he picks up support from Republican lawmakers, Obama has already accomplished one important political aim: He is now winning over more Republican voters than he did on election day--a phenomenon that, if it continues, could strengthen the president's hand on Capitol Hill.

``You don't calculate the impact of his effort in terms of the number of votes he gets on the stimulus bill,'' said Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster who worked for Obama's rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). ``You calculate it based on how he is perceived by Republicans around the country, and it looks to be substantially more positive.''

Still, it will be a blow to Obama if he ends up as Bill Clinton did in 1993, when the president's cornerstone economic initiative, which included a politically risky tax increase, passed with no support from Republicans. For Obama, failure to win Republican support for the stimulus bill could be a bad omen as he tries to build bipartisan coalitions later in the year on even more divisive issues, such as health care and energy legislation.

``The stimulus bill is going to lay the predicate for future cooperation,'' said Vin Weber, a Republican former House member who is now a lobbyist. ``If this policy is dictated on a party-line vote, it's hard to imagine that anything else will be bipartisan.''

See the full report on Obama's stimulus lobbying in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

For Republicans, the economic debate is the first test of how they will play the weak political hand dealt them by the 2008 elections. They have proven willing to oppose his stimulus plan so far, but some Republicans worry about the risk of confronting a popular president facing an economic crisis at a time when their party has less power than in more than a decade.

Obama's meeting on Capitol Hill today came at the invitation of House and Senate Republicans, who said they were responding to his claim that he wants to hear their ideas. It marks the first time the new president has been to Capitol Hill since he was sworn in.

But Obama has been working the Republican side of the aisle for weeks. He has made phone calls not just to GOP leaders but also to rank-and-file members, among them conservative Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). He named a Republican, former Illinois congressman Ray LaHood, to be secretary of Transportation.

Obama's chief of staff, former Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), is a master of Capitol Hill politicking and was dispatched soon after the election to meet GOP leaders. He has even given out his cell phone number to Republican lawmakers.

Emanuel is hosting two moderate Pennsylvania Republicans--Reps. Charlie Dent and Jim Gerlach--along with several other Republicans at a White House dinner on Tuesday night.

Dent and Gerlach are members of the Tuesday Group, which includes several dozen moderate Republicans. Neither will be an easy sell on the stimulus plan. Dent said Monday he would likely oppose the bill as it stands, because he is not convinced the package is designed to spend money quickly enough to stimulate the economy. Gerlach appears to be leaning in the same direction.

In putting together his stimulus bill, Obama had an eye on winning Republican support when he included several business tax breaks.

"There are already provisions in this bill relating to net operating loss, tax cuts and other small-business tax cuts that are directly related to suggestions that Republicans have given the economic team, the president of the United States and other members of Congress,'' White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a briefing Monday.

Obama initially asked that 40% of the bill's pricetag be allotted to tax cuts, a portion large enough that many Republicans were pleased and some Democrats angered. But when the bill failed nonetheless to win over many Republicans, Obama backed down and settled for allotting only one-third of the package to tax cuts.

That is the template that Republicans most worry about: However willing Obama may be to compromise with them, his fellow Democrats in Congress will pull him to the left. Some Republicans believe the White House efforts so far amount to empty stagecraft, noting that their efforts have been thwarted in the House to reduce the pricetag of the bill and give more weight to tax cuts.

``So far, it's been a pretty partisan exercise, and we're waiting for the bipartisan part,'' said Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

A House Republican aide said that at the meeting Obama held at the White House Friday with congressional Republicans, there was no real negotiation. Each side presented its case, but there was no give-and-take that might have resulted in more Republicans agreeing to support the bill, the aide said.

One measure of the stimulus bill's political prospects will come Tuesday, as the Senate Appropriations and Finance committees meet to draft its spending and tax portions It is not clear whether the results will live up to Obama's call for bipartisanship.

``It's all optics until we see actions,'' said Kyle Downey, a spokesman for Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).

But outside Capitol Hill, Republicans seem to like what they seen. In a Gallup Poll over the first four days of Obama's presidency, 43% of Republicans approved of the job he was doing. Overall, 68% of those surveyed--including Democrats, Republicans and independents--approved of Obama. That is the highest initial job approval rating for any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Josh Drobnyk of the Tribune Washington Bureau/Allentown Morning Call contributed.