Is Bipartisanship Possible?

Talk about keeping the old ways going! The economic stimulus plan vote in the House was with no Republicans voting for it. Not a one. A complete boycott. I tend to agree with a couple of the commentators I heard on TV last evening about it.

1) The GOP is playing to their (small) core base. That very conservative base that will never like anything a Democrat does in the White House who may be following the idea that they should pray for Obama to fail. It is a very narrow idea- and not one based on building a consensus. That group has not wanted a consensus if it didn't agree 100% with their views. Compromise is a dirty word.

2)They will now be able to vote to support the final bill (possibly) to play to the greater audience that is giving Obama the benefit of the doubt and some of the highest approval ratings in history. There will be a conference committee version that will contain a few more things they want and they can then say they stuck to their guns and supported the final bill, as imperfect as it may be, because the country has to work together. It will be a win-win situation- they hope.

3) Some of my thoughts about the whole thing center on the nagging belief that in the end both sides may be somewhat stuck. In old ideas that may very well be outdated. Both sides are sticking to their traditional economic theories to get out of this. I am not an economist, but it seems as if none of the ideas truly work as suggested. Some serious processing of the whole mess needs to be done. But of course we need to do something right now. That's where some real give and take has to happen. Some of what I have also heard on TV is that the biggest problems in the political quagmire may be the congressional leaders and not Obama. We will see.

4) At least the Republicans are being consistent- many of them voted against REPUBLICAN George Bush's stimulus proposal as well. So maybe they are being bi-partisan after all.