I think that Obama is playing a subtle PR game on the Republican Congressional leaders and their followers and on the American public at the same time. He is attempting to differentiate himself positively from the Bush technique of writing a totally partisan bill, even larding it up with poison pills that the Democrats are forced to vote against and then cramming it through Congress in brute force (Rovian) style. The Obama's game includes caving on some issues that don't effect his poll standing, but holding relatively firm on the core of what he needs. The fact that so many liberals are clearly upset by his surrenders helps him achieve this by suckering in the conservatively biased media. The result is that he is getting the most publicly popular things he needs while the Republicans in Congress are painting themselves into a corner and looking ridiculous doing it. That it is a long-term game. It's a long term strategy.
Obama has the polls in his favor and he has just been elected as a direct rejection of George Bush. The estimated 1.8 million crowd that went to Washington for the inauguration sent a signal that the Republicans could not have missed, although the media appears to have missed it. The media has had to put Obama's inauguration crowds into the memory hole. But he also has to get health care through, and I seriously doubt that Obama has given up on his promise to do that this year. He needs to husband his power to accomplish that.
The Congressional Republicans are coming out of this stimulus vote looking very bad, while Limbaugh and the right wing talk jocks are coming off looking desperate. The talk show host's control of the Republican Congressional party is also being laid bare to the public. Again, this is something the media has to bury in the memory hole.
I don't think Obama ever thought the Republicans in Congress were going to be reasonable. They can't. While they are from red states and congressional districts and seem to have life time sinecures, that is only as long as they toe the line with their constituencies in the Republican Party. If any of them actually start cooperating with Obama, they will face the wrath of Limbaugh, et al. now and a primary challenge next year. As for the next general election, Obama's Internet-based social and political organizations (which have become part of the DNC) are going to be putting pressure on them from their home districts and states. If the Republicans who are targeted that way survive a primary challenge, they will face much stronger Democratic opposition in the next general election. They don't dare cooperate with Obama and breal with their leadership and the Talk Show hosts, or they becoem more vulnerable to losing their seat in Congress. It'd s s two-pronged attack that depends on Obama's base of supporters.
I'm pretty sure that team Obama has taken lessons from what happened to Bill Clinton in 1994. Obama really doesn't want to lose his Democratic Party majorities in Congress. The team is going to need those majorities when the depression gets much worse. It is quite clear now that it will, a fact that the Congressional Republicans and talk show hosts are depending on to rebuild Republican Congressional power.
Through all this, of course, we can expect the media to continue to attack the Obama administration because that's what they are trained and organized to do. Obama is going to also have to avoid the media sniping while letting them look so partisan that they cease to be as effective as they were against Gore and Kerry. Generally the media conservative bias will be an even longer term problem for Obama, but he got elected without them. He can deal with them.
That's my best guess regarding "What Obama thinks." He is still holding his cards close to his chest, and we'll have to discern his thinking from his behavior and his results. So far he has done well.
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