Elizabeth Drew's essay in the New York Review of Books contains an interesting revelation:

Most Democrats agree with liberal economists such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich that the $787 billion stimulus bill that emerged from Congress isn't large enough--though it is only one part of the administration's plans to try to restore the economy, the others being to get banks lending and to alleviate the housing crisis. The issue is whether, in the world in which Obama had to function, he could have done a great deal better. Last year's expensive efforts to stimulate the economy--the $600 one-shot rebate plan in February 2008 and half of the $700 billion bailout plan for financial institutions approved in early October--were widely seen as failures, so much of the public was leery of new, big, expensive plans.

A prominent House Democrat told me that the decision, reached before Obama was sworn in, that the stimulus bill should be limited to $825 billion "was made from a political perspective, not for economic reasons." He said, "I think the economic argument for going over $1 trillion is pretty good, but we feared that $1 trillion would produce sticker shock. We feared it would frighten off the Blue Dogs [conservative Democrats] and that Republicans would attack it." It was assumed that the number would rise as the stimulus bill went through Congress, since that's what normally happens with spending bills. Of course the Republicans attacked the lower number anyway.

Legislative decision-making can never be free from political calculation - it's a fundamental tool to predict what's possible. But the gun-shy establishment thinking behind the stimulus always puzzled me - at $800 billion, Republicans can already say the bill is "nearly $1 trillion."

So was it worth slashing a more effective stimulus? Would passage of a $1.2-1.4 trillion stimulus been prohibitively more difficult? My gut says the answer to both is 'no.' I have a feeling the opposition of the Collins/Nelson axis-of-moderation was both relative and arbitrary: they would have wanted 10% lopped off any bill, no matter the size.

But then again, I've never passed a bill, as Rahm would say.

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Agree with Ezra and Duncan: it's great to see substantive, hard questions coming from the left, rather than our normal diet of Chuck Todd-ish 'I-have-a-confrontational-sounding-question-based-on-my-lack-of-understanding' sort of Village-filler.

Also enjoyable to see how startled some people get when questioned by people who, you know, are smart.

Here's Rachel:

Also, can we all go back to agreeing that Andrew Sullivan isn't really a liberal now? Because, well...

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Over at his new digs, Greg Sargent digs into some disturbing new poll numbers from Rasmussen:

Are Dem Congressional leaders  Nancy Pelosi and  Harry Reid the victims of the success of the new President from their own party?

Some new and intriguing polling out this morning suggests this possibility. Rasmussen Reports finds that to some degree, Dems in Congress are losing to the GOP in the spin wars over which party is treating the stimulus package in a more partisan manner. The poll finds that 58% think Dems are more partisan, while 52% think Republicans are -- not great numbers for the GOP, but obviously worse for Dems.

But here's the rub. The poll also finds that the public perceives President Obama as the bipartisan figure here; 42% say that he's governing in a bipartisan manner, while only 39% say he's governing as a partisan -- far better than either party in Congress.

This suggests that Obama's strategy of hovering above the fray while Dems duke it out with Republicans over the stim package is leading the public to perceive him in more positive terms than they view Congress -- but at the expense of his fellow Dems.

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Republicans will say it failed:

Senate Republicans telegraphed their political strategy surrounding the stimulus Thursday, saying that if the economy continues to tank over the next several months, they'll be in position to say, in effect, 'We told you so.'

Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and nine other Republicans spoke with reporters Thursday afternoon following their House colleagues' unanimous rejection of President Obama's stimulus package Wednesday evening.

"They can cram down a stimulus package without Republican support," said Kyl, "but if that happens, then when, as we believe, in six months or so, when the American people say, 'Wait a minute, we're not better off. In fact, we're worse off than we were six months ago. Who is responsible for this and what can be done to fix it?' Republicans then are going to be in a position to say, 'We didn't have the input in this and that's why it didn't work.'"

Of course. As has been discussed at length, Republicans have zero to gain by supporting or defending Obama's stimulus. In success they'd never get credit for joining Obama. But their support would bring blame in failure.

So as predicted, Republicans will start declaring the stimulus a failure, what, five minutes after Obama signs it into law?

These guys are unreal.

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There's two possible gains from the bipartisan outreach/symbolism on the stimulus from the administration:

• 1. The substantive: a non-trivial number of Republicans actually vote for the stimulus package, and ownership is diffused. Two years from now, harder for Republicans to play politics and claim the Dem-big-spending stimulus failed.

  1(a) A handful of swing Republicans vote in favor, and look weak to their party in two years for "selling-out" to Dems. Also good.

• 2. The symbolic: only a marginal number of Republicans vote for the stimulus, but Obama looks magnanimous for attempting outreach. This, ostensibly, makes it harder for Republicans to claim Dems steamrolled them. Marginal party pouting in the corner with Rush Limbaugh, hoping for failure. Shorter: theoretically neutralizes a Republican attack line and creates one for Dems.

I'm not sure if anyone in the administration actually believed they'd pull off #1, but at this point it seems off the table. So the questions move to #2: how much effort is it worth, and how likely is a beneficial result?

One of the biggest challenges to hitting the payoff is the media - I just don't trust them to tell the story. If Republicans attack Obama for steamrolling them even if he didn't, will political reporters really call out the lie?

And beyond that - the deck's already stacked: thinkprogress.org shows us who's on TV doing the talking.

So besides a handful of beltway pundits seeing bipartisan starbursts and rainbows, I'm not really sure who the audience is for all this theater. As Jonathan points out, Republicans aren't exactly in the strongest bargaining position anyway.

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