> Which, by the way, would explain why Obama is so determined to get
> Olympia Snowe's vote.
>
>
>
> ........maybe, but can he really believe that a single Republican vote
> will provide enough of a fig leaf? If the Republicans campaign
> against universal care by pointing to the shortcomings of this bill, I
> doubt confronting them with "B-b-b-but...it was a bipartisan bill!"
> would even constitute a speed bump on that path. They regularly
> overcome more substantial hypocrisies than that before hitting the
> snooze button each morning.
It's not about having the better argument - it's about optics, as they say. Olympia Snowe is only one senator, but they've also wheeled out Bob Dole, Tom Ridge, and I think Mike Bloomberg and Colin Powell to endorse the bill. The day Obama signs the bill he'll give a big speech where he'll use the word "bipartisan" 173 times. If Republicans point out the bill got only one GOP vote, the White House can tout all those non-elected Republicans.
But actually, the point is *not* to convince the public the bill was really "bipartisan" in the literal sense of getting a lot of support from the GOP regulars. The point is precisely the opposite: To paint the GOP regulars as obstructionist extremists by highlighting the "reasonable" Republicans like Snow, Dole, Ridge, Bloomberg and Powell. Which gives even more comfort to Adolph Reed's conjecture about Obama's strategy.
SA