Discussion: Ray LaHood: Obama Was Unable To Execute Bipartisan Approach

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You forgot the first meeting, on election night.

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LaHood seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth. He also seems to be forgetting the endless courtship of Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. In particular, Snowe seemed to revel in this with her endless mugging for the camera.

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Given what Rs had done to the country when O took office, it was totally wrong, IMO for Obama to even attempt to get support from Republicans. He should have done the exact opposite, mock them, repeatedly for the mess they/Conservatism created. Why ask for their support when they had been wrong about everything?

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Oh, fuck you, La Hood, you lying motherfucker. Obama reached out his hand to those fucking Republican traitors more times than most of the Republican base can count. Go back and suck on the balls of your Teabagger enablers, Ray. And once again, fuck you.

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You hit the nail on the hood. What a useless prick

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I second that.

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"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.”

He conveniently leaves out that that “boom” decision happened after they tried very hard to get the few “moderate” GOP Senators, mainly Snowe and Collins, by making all kinds of concessions (including way too much of the “stimulus” as tax cuts, where they didn’t really stimulate much), and then even those two caved to McConnell and said no. So after EVERY Republican Senator says “no” – yes, they “decided” to (read: had to) pass it with just Democratic votes.

They were supposed to say “well, we won’t do anything Mitch doesn’t want us to” and let the country go down the drain? Please.

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Obama depended almost exclusively on a handful of folk

I guess Ray’s typical Beltway lack of loyalty as shown here played a role in that perceived “isolation”?

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Only when the deceptiCONS are in the minority. When they’re in the majority, the LIBRULZ needs to just shut up, because “elections have consequences” and “the people have spoken”.

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“I think they felt like they need to push this through quickly to get the economy moving,” he told the Times. "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.”

A stimulus was absolutely essential. This was not negotiable. We ended up with a stimulus much smaller than necessary. The fact that you were unable to work for this meant you needed to disappear.

Of course, the GOP was never going to work with a president who they had decided was illegitimate. And they thought he was illegitimate because he was black and has a funny foreign name. Let’s not ignore that gigantic dead elephant stinking up the room.

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It is the official position of the United States’ government not to negotiate with terrorists.

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So laHood wanted to be president and they wouldnt let him?

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This is exactly right. Rachel Maddow did a great piece on this:

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This doesn’t take into account the fact that Republicans decided before Obama was sworn in that they were going to oppose him on every front…

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Ray LaHood is a dishonest man, I have no respect for him.

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Unproductive revisionist history.

Where were you on inauguration day when your subversive cohorts met and agreed not to work with the President under any circumstances ?

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In GOP land, the failure of bi-partisan cooperation is obviously blamed on one partisan.

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So LaHood and two other Republicans were brought in to show bipartisanship, but he refused to reciprocate by trying to help get Republican votes for a very important package? Don’t really know what to say about that…

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You could have saved me some time by putting that part about LaHood is out shilling a book earlier in your article.

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I pulled out some excerpts from Obama’s first press conference, on the 20th day of his presidency: He makes it pretty clear that he already was getting very little cooperation from Congress, and that the stimulus was too important to delay on the altar of unrequited bipartisanship.

Now, after many weeks of debate and discussion, the plan that ultimately emerges from Congress must be big enough and bold enough to meet the size of the economic challenges that we face right now.

It’s a plan that is already supported by businesses representing almost every industry in America, by both the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. It contains input, ideas and compromises from both Democrats and Republicans.

And let me go to Jennifer Loven at [The Associated Press]. There you go.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Earlier today in Indiana, you said something striking. You said that this nation could end up in a crisis without action that we would be unable to reverse. …

Obama: … I think that what I’ve said is what other economists have said across the political spectrum, which is that, if you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you potentially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of.

Chip Reid?

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. You have often said that bipartisanship is extraordinarily important, overall and in this stimulus package, but now, when we ask your advisers about the lack of bipartisanship so far – zero votes in the House, three in the Senate – they say, “Well, it’s not the number of votes that matters; it’s the number of jobs that will be created.”

Is that a sign that you are moving away – your White House is moving away from this emphasis on bipartisanship?

And what went wrong? Did you underestimate how hard it would be to change the way Washington works?

Obama: Well, I don’t think – I don’t think I underestimated it. I don’t think the – the American people underestimated it. They understand that there have been a lot of bad habits built up here in Washington, and it’s going to take time to break down some of those bad habits.

You know, when I made a series of overtures to the Republicans, going over to meet with both Republican caucuses, you know, putting three Republicans in my cabinet – something that is unprecedented – making sure that they were invited here to the White House to talk about the economic recovery plan, all those were not designed simply to get some short-term votes. They were designed to try to build up some trust over time.

And I think that, as I continue to make these overtures, over time, hopefully that will be reciprocated.

But understand the bottom line that I’ve got right now, which is what’s happening to the people of Elkhart and what’s happening across the country. I can’t afford to see Congress play the usual political games. What we have to do right now is deliver for the American people.

So my bottom line when it comes to the recovery package is: Send me a bill that creates or saves 4 million jobs. Because everybody has to be possessed with a sense of urgency about putting people back to work, making sure that folks are staying in their homes, that they can send their kids to college.

That doesn’t negate the continuing efforts that I’m going to make to listen and engage with my Republican colleagues. And hopefully the tone that I’ve taken, which has been consistently civil and respectful, will pay some dividends over the long term. There are going to be areas where we disagree, and there are going to be areas where we agree.

As I said, the one concern I’ve got on the stimulus package, in terms of the debate and listening to some of what’s been said in Congress, is that there seems to be a set of folks who – I don’t doubt their sincerity – who just believe that we should do nothing.

Now, if that’s their opening position or their closing position in negotiations, then we’re probably not going to make much progress, because I don’t think that’s economically sound and I don’t think what – that’s what the American people expect, is for us to stand by and do nothing.

There are others who recognize that we’ve got to do a significant recovery package, but they’re concerned about the mix of what’s in there. And if they’re sincere about it, then I’m happy to have conversations about this tax cut versus that – that tax cut or this infrastructure project versus that infrastructure project.

…

So I’m going to keep on engaging. I hope that, as we get the Senate and the House bills together, that everybody is willing to give a little bit. I suspect that the package that emerges is not going to be 100 percent of what I want.

But my bottom line is, are we creating 4 million jobs? And are we laying the foundation for long-term economic growth?

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