Stimulus negotiatin'

So this started as a comment on Ben's comment on Lion's last post, but it's ballooned into a post itself. Totally Web 2.0, eh?

Ben, optimistically, had this to say about the pathetically small amount of money that the stimulus contains for rail transportation, something we all seem to agree is a really awesome place to put infrastructure money:

My brightest of hopes is that the infrastructure allocation is so discouragingly low-ballin' because Obama and his economic advisers assume that it will be into that area where most of the hot, buttered pork will flow. Is that a fair assumption or could there just as easily be post-offices and monuments to nowhere for every bridge?

Nate Silver actually had a post on this a little while ago, although it was on the actual size of the stimulus in general. His theory is that Obama is deliberately shooting low in order to transform the negotiating process over the content of the bill into one that shuts out the republicans - the administration crowds out the right end of the spectrum, and the senate democrats hold up the left, leaving no room for a strong republican presence. It's an interesting theory, and the suggestion seems to be that Obama will play the tough guy and build up an image of a pragmatic spender while he lets the Senate democrats toss tons of options around (which he accepts faux-resignedly). In the process, the republicans, who are already having a lot of trouble trying to figure out where to stand on this bail-out altogether, get tossed out into the bargaining wilderness - while, simultaneously, Obama has nice friendly meetings with them and makes them feel included. This highly satisfying exchange adds a little weight to the theory: he's making it clear that they can participate, but only up to a point.

Now, Nate Silver is a political god, and I don't want to come across as hubristic here, but the price-is-right strategy is a little too cute for me. You're right, Ben, to speculate that this stimulus is going to be a Rabbi's nightmare, and that some of that will translate into infrastructure or rail funding, but really, I don't think the administration is subtly trying to lock the republicans out of the negotiations. For one, they would have a field day in the media, screaming bloody obstructionism. Say what you will about the state of American conservatism, but they still know how to get attention, and we're probably moving into an Obama-critical phase in national coverage anyway after the recent hagiographical overdose. Secondly, I'm positive that, no matter how necessary it is, this stimulus is a pox on the house of whoever touches it. There will inevitably be loads and loads of pork, graft, fraud, and good old-fashioned swindling going down - and that means that 2010, which we can already assume will be a defensive year for the democrats, is going to be a slaughter if republicans can convincingly argue that they had nothing to do with it. If the republicans don't sign off on it, if it comes down to a vote and it splits perfectly down party lines, then the democrats will definitely lose some seats (and Obama will lose a lot of his clout with the more centrist house democrats up for re-election). I'm sure, too, that the republican leadership is aware of this, and therefore they absolutely will not be ignored outright.

So Obama needs to give the republicans just enough to convince them that they can't abandon the bill, at least not their leadership. Therefore, a better explanation for why he's low-balling the stimulus is because he wants them to know he's receptive and willing to listen to them (to a point). Obviously, this is the part of the sausage-making process that everyone hates - compromising good policy for the sake of political survival - and it's unclear, to me, whether Obama has signaled that he will abandon this strategy if the success of the stimulus becomes unlikely. Yesterday, Chuck Todd asked Robert Gibbs if Obama would veto any stimulus that passed without republican support, a seemingly inane question that now has me thinking Todd is seeing something other people aren't. Would Obama let the stimulus pass with a big (D) next to it, virtually guaranteeing a shitty 2010 and a possibly disastrous 2012?