I really do think that there are some liberals who really don’t have a solid understanding of long-term strategy. Take, for example, David Sirota of OpenLeft, who states:

Rachel [Maddow] and I discussed a question that I asked a few weeks ago: When it comes to the economic recovery package, how much should taxpayers have to pay for political aesthetics? As I noted back then, the Obama administration concedes to reporters that it could pass an economic recovery package right now, without making any policy concessions to Republicans, such as substituting more tax cuts for more infrastructure spending. And yet, Obama and Democrats are doing just that – making concessions to Republicans in hopes that a majority of Republicans will support the final bill. And so again, how many billions of dollars in inefficient tax cuts must taxpayers be forced to finance in order to help Obama attract extra Republican votes that he doesn’t actually need?

What’s so bad about this question even being on the table is that since I wrote my original post, Republicans themselves have publicly acknowledged that Democrats do not have to make any concessions to them in order to pass the bill.

Of course, Sirota’s point about the bail-out is true, in the sense that, yes, the Democrats could easily force through a bail-out without any real input from Republicans and still expect to get it through both the House and the Senate (I honestly don’t believe that McConnell would seriously try to block a stimulus bill) but that doesn’t really matter because, as Al Giordano (as usual) notes, this is about long-term electoral and legislative strategy:

The President doesn’t need their [Republicans'] votes on the Stimulus (therefore, this maneuver is not about the Stimulus, but more akin to a football team calling a running play to set up a later passing play). The truth is that so many Congressional Democrats are so undependable that Obama will need some Republican votes later on other legislative priorities, particularly in the Senate in order to get 60 votes for “cloture” to allow bills to be voted up or down: On the Employee’s Free Choice Act, on Immigration Reform (and now he needs one more to offset the anti-immigrant junior Democratic Senator from New York), on children’s health care and much, much more. To get to that point, he has to make individual Republicans feel vulnerable at the ballot box to Democratic challenge. Today’s events are speeding that process up.

To give a practical example of Al’s point, if Blanche Lincoln, whose home state politics are dominated by Wal-Mart, decides to oppose the EFCA, would forcing the stimulus bill through the congress with no absolutely no attempt to negotiate with the Republicans really make Republican senators like Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Spector more likely to support EFCA? Probably not.

Another point, raised by Booman over at the Booman Tribune (a must read), is this idea that individual Republican senators, in order to be able to have any say in governing, must be willing to compromise in committees. To take this point a step further (and to relate it back to what Al said) if the Democrats don’t show any inclination towards getting input from Republicans on these issues, why exactly should the Republicans make any concessions on other issues which will require bipartisan support for passage (like health-care or immigration reform)? Think back to the elections, both Hillary Clinton and John McCain both were making decisions almost uniformly based on short-term considerations, while it was Obama who was thinking long-term in his strategy, and guess who became president?

UPDATE: It would appear that David Sirota is throwing a temper tantrum because I happen to disagree with him:

Al Giordano and Election Inspection make arguably the most ignorant, least informed, stupendously idiotic assertion that Obama is trying to negotiate with Republicans on the economic recovery package in the belief that if he plays his cards right now, they will cooperate with Democrats when Democrats push more contentious bills like the Employee Free Choice Act.

Now, look – I think Obama is making a big mistake not by rhetorically reaching out to Republicans, but by legislatively negotiating with them on a stimulus bill where their legislative complicity isn’t necessary. However, Barack Obama is a lot of things – but one of them is not stupid to the point of braindead. He is definitely not stupid enough to believe – as Giordino(sp) and Election Inspection apparently do themselves, and as they believe Obama does himself – that being nice to Republicans on the stimulus bill or outmaneuvering him on the bill will make them more likely to later vote for something like the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that the entire corporate community has sworn to stop at all costs.

Ignoring this bizarre claim that the Republicans are outmanuevering Obama on this (which Al has already thoroughly debunked) Sirota seems to be taking strategic cues from the Republicans, basically that Democrats need to shove through whatever they can and to hell with whatever the other guys want. Of course, we all know what happened to the Republicans after they did that, don’t we?