I had originally thought that Obama would get more republicans to support the stimulus but it's become apparent that the republicans are backing into the hard right corner, so bipartisanship needs to be viewed as inviting the republicans to participate, but if they're not offering any good ideas, or the same ideas, then there's no sense bickering with them. McCain says they weren't invited to participate, but three republicans did.
CNN: “It was a bad beginning,” McCain said Sunday of the legislative process that resulted in the $787 billion stimulus bill recently passed by Congress. “It was a bad beginning because it wasn’t what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people – that we would sit down together.”
While McCain said he appreciated the fact that Obama came to Capitol Hill to speak with House Republicans about the stimulus bill. But, “that’s not how you negotiate a result.” Instead, “you sit down in a room with competing proposals” and “almost all of our proposals went down on a party-line vote”
“I hope the next time we will sit down together and conduct truly bipartisan negotiations. This was not a bipartisan bill.”
