You might want to take a look at this New York Times article summarizing remarks from Ray LaHood, the only elected Republican member of the Obama cabinet. Here’s a snippet:
While Mr. Gates was held over from a Republican administration, Mr. LaHood was the only Republican in the first cabinet who had been elected to public office. In his second term, Mr. Obama appointed former Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, as defense secretary, although he did not last long.
In the interview and the book, Mr. LaHood recounted his excitement at joining the new administration — and his quick disappointment at its opening gambits. In the interest of passing an economic stimulus package quickly to counter the deep recession he inherited, Mr. Obama agreed to a strategy of allowing Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who then served as House speaker, to pass it without Republicans.
“I think they felt like they need to push this through quickly to get the economy moving,†Mr. LaHood said in the interview. “And, boom, they made a decision that they were going to pass economic stimulus with just Democratic votes. That was the beginning of the end of bipartisanship.â€
When Mr. Emanuel asked him to call 10 to 15 of his former Republican colleagues to lobby for the stimulus, Mr. LaHood said each complained of being shut out by Democrats. As a result, he refused to help anymore.
“I called Rahm and said, ‘This is mission impossible,’†he recounted in the book. “I stopped making calls. I did not expect Republicans to roll over and accept the president’s ambitious economic recovery agenda whole cloth.â€
Mr. LaHood said that set the tone for the rest of Mr. Obama’s administration. “House Republicans deserve a fair amount of blame for the lock-step vote on stimulus,†he wrote, because they would not meet Mr. Obama halfway. But in handing the project over to Mrs. Pelosi, he said, “the price we paid was incalculable.â€
He added, “The White House had reached this decision without consulting me, the person they had selected to promote bipartisanship.â€
That comports completely with the many reports from White House insiders of insularity and isolation in the Obama White House, a “my way or the highway” approach to governance.
Just a quick correction. LaHood claims it was a my way or highway after he discovered that reaching out to the GOP did not work.
Steve
I do not interpret this:
that way. My interpretation is that the White House had already decided on that strategy.
“The only elected Republican in Mr. Obama’s original cabinet, Mr. LaHood said the president never made a sustained effort to reach out and gave up too easily. As a result, he became isolated and reliant on a group of like-minded advisers.”
“. “House Republicans deserve a fair amount of blame for the lock-step vote on stimulus,†he wrote, because they would not meet Mr. Obama halfway. But in handing the project over to Mrs. Pelosi, he said, “the price we paid was incalculable.â€
It sounds to me as though the GOP would not meet him halfway, so he turned it over to Pelosi to get the stimulus through. Since almost by definition, a fiscal stimulus in a recession is time sensitive, not sure he had much choice. We certainly saw what the GOP did on health care, where they dragged it out for months, which actually almost ended up as good strategy for them when Kennedy died and the Dems lost their 60 seats.
Steve
Are you a Right wing hater or not? I have been informed that:
Lahood was my Representative. He was chief of staff for Bob Michel and was elected to his seat when Michel decided to resign in the face of Gingrich’s rising popularity. Lahood was one of the few in that class of Republicans that didn’t sign the Contract with America. I don’t know that he was a great representative for the district; I think to some extent he was angling for the Speaker’s job, and would have been good if you believe that a Speaker should be the moderate, dignified face of the party, while the more partisan party leadership would be pressed by the majority leader. Certainly resigned in disgust of Congress, and I have no doubt that he was disgusted with how things turned out in the Obama administration. There are few as bitter as the disappointed optimist.
The timing doesn’t support that, steve. It’s the other way around. President Obama did not meet with the GOP Congressional leadership until six months after he’d been elected had elapsed.
Let’s get the timeframe right:
12/?/2008 Democratic Congressional leaders start working on the stimulus bill;
1/6/2009 Senate version of stimulus bill introduced
1/20/2009 Obama inaugurated
1/28/2009 House version of stimulus bill passes.
2/9/2009 Senate version of stimulus bill passes.
2/11/2009 An agreed version of the bill is drafted behind the scenes, but not released to the public,
2/12/2009 Obama visits Caterpillar plant in LaHood’s former district in his one lobbying visit for stimulus bill. Asks people to urge their Representative to vote for the bill.
2/12/2009 House rules committee waives requirement for 48-hour public review of law before consideration.
2/13/2009 Agreed version passes both House and Senate. LaHood’s successor votes against the bill, stating that nobody from CAT urged him to vote for the bill. He also complained about the process:
“Bipartisanship is not one party writes the bill and we all vote for it. Bipartisanship means you truly meld together both sides ideas and come up with a compromise bill,†Schock told King. “That didn’t happen in this case and ultimately, that’s why I voted against it.â€
I think it can be safely assumed that one of the Representatives LaHood would have called was his successor Aaron Schock, and I read that last quote in the context of LaHood and others asking him to support the bill for the sake of bipartisanship. Schock also had a reputation for bipartisanship in the State legislature, and one of his Democratic colleagues actually helped him in his run to succeed LaHood by appearing in a TV campaign ad for Schock. She was told by the Democratic Party leadership to stop doing that.
“President Obama did not meet with the GOP Congressional leadership until six months after he’d been elected had elapsed.”
He met with them on Jan 23, 2009 and Jan 27, 2009.
Go back and check what I wrote. “Republican Congressional leadership”. That’s how business is done on the Hill. What I’m talking about is private meetings with the leadership not lobbying individual Congressmen or visits to Congress.
Ah, right, no true meeting. Got it.
As a nonpartisan it’s pretty obvious to me that neither side was/is really interested in bipartisanship but partisans are very interested in keeping up appearances to make the other side look bad. In this regard the Democrats did a better job of appearing more bipartisan without actually being more bipartisan or, to give them a bit more credit, acting a bit more bipartisan than the GoP.
There’s a lot of “he said-she said” when it comes to who is to blame for not being bipartisan. No one knows which way the causality flows whether it is the stimulus or Obamacare or any other issue – but those with skin in the game will make the predictable arguments that the other side is to blame. Prisoner’s dilemma justifications seem to rule partisan thinking.
Much of the influence of opposition parties is to insert their differences of opinions/approaches. Eventually, if discourse remains open and civil, the end game should encourage policies that meet somewhere in the middle — IOW a refection of bipartisan efforts.
The POTUS, though, remains the hinge pin in setting the tone for bipartisan discussions that want to arrive at bipartisan solutions. If being less polarized is a real goal, then a president’s greatest focus should be to achieve an ongoing, workable consensus among as many people in congress as possible. Any agenda opposition should be viewed as a leadership challenge, not an obstacle to be crushed. The emphasis should be on uniting, or at the very least, buffering differences rather than accentuating them, which only lead to ever greater breeches of agreement and government disruption.
Also. cutting remarks from disgruntled opponents are partisan behaviors historically exercised on both sides of the aisle. But, such “red meat” commentary should not be taken personally or allowed to be an excuse to go-it-alone with a “pen and a phone.” as the current president has done early on in his presidency.
No. The president was meeting with the inmates of the asylum rather than the director. That might be an act of mercy but it’s no way to get the asylum’s business.
You’re implying that I’m splitting hairs or making facetious distinctions. Far from it.
One may reasonably believe that the president didn’t know how to gain Republican support or that he didn’t care whether he got it or not. I think the latter and that he’d decided to stiff arm the Republicans, possibly before he had even been elected.
@sam, I believe that was the meeting where Obama shut off the debate on tax issues with “I won.”
PD- Yes. That is why the Republican said..
“This was not a drive-by P.R. stunt, and I actually thought it might be,†said Representative Zach Wamp, Republican of Tennessee. “It was a substantive, in-depth discussion with our conference, and he’s very effective.â€
Steve
Reading all of that, including sam’s link, it sounds like the House GOP had felt shut out by Pelosi, and Obama came in and made gestures as though he wanted to work with them but behind the scenes he turned it over to Pelosi (without putting pressure on her to change her approach and include the GOP.)
What will likely never be known is whether that was intentional on Obama’s part (to make himself look like the reasonable one even though he had no intentions of actual bipartisanship) or if he genuinely wanted to change the tone but failed due to inexperience. What is clear is that his failure to rein in Pelosi and Reid poisoned the well.
@CStanley, I think the primary dynamic is the one LaHood mentions that speed is the most important thing, so quality suffers (something Obama sort of conceded when he said what can you expect from Congress) and cost in terms of bipartisanship. Obama was involved in bipartisanship legislation at the state-level, which involves designated negotiators, late night closed door meetings at a hotel, usually booze, cigars and poker. This was an attempt to get two or three Republicans to vote for the bill, which is why LaHood was asked to call 10 to 15 members.
” he genuinely wanted to change the tone but failed due to inexperience.”
LaHood seems to be saying it is his impression Obama did want to change the tone, but he also wanted the stimulus bill to pass quickly. He did not realize that the GOP would refuse to work with him as a result and further attempts to work together failed, though it is also clear he made some early efforts.
Steve