A stand, only somewhat dignified

Barack Obama’s decision to sign the stimulus bill yesterday in Denver probably irked a lot of Republicans.

But the GOP should be more worried about the polls. Gallup.com found that 67 percent of voters favored Obama’s handling of the stimulus while 58 percent opposed the Republican handling. Other polls showed public support for the stimulus had edged up to 59 percent and that the crucial bloc of independent voters was still convinced government spending stimulates the economy more than tax cuts.

Republicans seem to have lost their first major battle as an opposition party.
What happened?

Conservatives seemed convinced they had learned from the past and were going to move forward by returning to their core principles.

Indiana congressman Mike Pence, the third-most powerful Republican in the House, attacked the stimulus as “chock full of a liberal ... wish list of dusty old spending priorities” while focusing on projects such as a fish passage barrier that were hardly representative of the entire bill.

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican Whip chiefly responsible for uniting Republicans against the stimulus, claimed to be studying the career of House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The bill cleared the senate with the help of three moderate Republicans while Sen. John McCain was referring to the stimulus as “generational theft.” The GOP alternative stimulus plan, composed mostly of tax cuts, would have still cost the government about $478 billion, and there is plenty of evidence that government expenditure can stimulate the economy more. Republicans exaggerated the degree to which the stimulus bill was a cover for liberal interest groups. The bill was not, as Sean Hannity called it, “the European socialist act of 2009.”

In what ways did Republicans think they were appealing to voters panicked over the fate of the economy? 

Liberals are probably gloating. But they shouldn’t be.

FiveThirtyEight.com, a Web site specializing in electoral projections, figures the five most competitive Senate seats in 2010 will be seats currently held by Republicans. Yet it predicts that the sixth-most competitive seat will be Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s.

Gallup found that Congress’s approval rating increased, but only from 19 to 31 percent. .Only 48 percent of Americans approved of how Democrats in Congress handled the stimulus.

It was these House and Senate Democrats over which Obama should have exercised more control. Beyond the “Buy American” controversy, congressional Democrats also attached a puzzling provision that prevents financial institutions using government bailout funds from hiring skilled immigrants. An even broader restriction on executive pay that Obama wanted out of the bill was snuck in at the last second by Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd.

The lesson now for Republicans isn’t that they should have capitulated to a stimulus with plenty of flaws. The 30 Republican Senators (plus Independent Joe Lieberman) who tried to completely remove “Buy American” from the bill should feel their efforts were worthwhile, even if they ultimately came to nothing.

Only 31 percent of Americans approved of how Republicans in Congress handled the stimulus. That is probably because by relying on talking heads like Hannity and Rush Limbaugh – and playing off the silly fear that Democrats are closeted Marxists – 31 percent of Americans are about all Republicans have been talking to.