Stimu-Rama!

Is Brad right about this?   Not that I think Obama would do anything that might upset his GOP rival buddies, which this would:

However, the Senate rule requiring a supermajority (three-fifths of the Senate) to shut down attempted fillibusters with a cloture vote, is based on the number of "Senators duly chosen and sworn" --- in other words, currently seated Senators.

With two seats vacant then, from MN and NH, after Gregg's departure, that would put the number of "duly chosen and sworn" Senators needed to stop a filibuster at just 59 (or, 58.8, to be precise, but since we're not allowed to count Lieberman as .8 of a human, the number needed for cloture would be 59)...

Krugman sums up recent stimulus history:

Meanwhile, when it came to stimulus legislation, when Obama finally introduced his economic plan he immediately began negotiating with himself, preemptively offering concessions to the GOP, which voted against the plan anyway. (And Obama appears, in the name of bipartisanship, to have thrown away a Senate vote he may well need.)

Our community organizer president has apparently forgotten how to get it done - or he doesn't trust the grassroots to help him.  As Chris Bowers says, who knows at this point?

It isn't clear what, or who, Obama's most dedicated activists should be supporting right now. Does he want a larger stimulus bill? A smaller one? Which members of Congress do we need to lobby? Are Republicans the problem? Are Democrats? No one knows, and there are a lot of mixed signals. That is not a good thing.

Not a good thing at all. 

Comments

[mick arran]

...he doesn't trust the grassroots to help him.

I don't know that it's so much a matter of trust as a matter of inexperience and staff. When they wanted votes, they came after us (and when they want them next time, they'll do it again). But now that he's governing, a) BO clearly hasn't learned how to use the Bully Pulpit that is the presidency, and b) his staff are Beltway players with establishment resumes and establishment contacts who are focused on getting GOP concessions as the way to play the game because that's the way it's been played for decades.

Behind those weaknesses are the twin poison pills of post-partisanship and the BD Caucus. When a powerful chunk of your own party is only too willing to vote with the opposition and you are determined to appease a rigid group of tricky non-compromisers, you can't negotiate from strength unless, as I've said many times, you're willing to take on the recalcitrants and obstructionists on your side of the aisle. As long as he shies away from that, we're looking at what will become the primary pattern of the Obama Administration.