O WHO?:

GOP Sees Positives In Negative Stand: Leaders Seize On Spending Issue (Alec MacGillis and Perry Bacon Jr., 2/09/09, Washington Post)

After giving the package zero votes in the House, and 0with their counterparts in the Senate likely to provide in a crucial procedural vote today only the handful of votes needed to avoid a filibuster, Republicans are relishing the opportunity to make a big statement. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) suggested last week that the party is learning from the disruptive tactics of the Taliban, and the GOP these days does have the bravado of an insurgent band that has pulled together after a big defeat to carry off a quick, if not particularly damaging, raid on the powers that be.

"We're so far ahead of where we thought we'd be at this time," said Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), one of several younger congressmen seeking to lead the party's renewal. "It's not a sign that we're back to where we need to be, but it's a sign that we're beginning to find our voice. We're standing on our core principles, and the core principle that suffered the most in recent years was fiscal conservatism and economic liberty. That was the tallest pole in our tent, and we took an ax to it, but now we're building it back."

The second-ranking House Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), put it more bluntly. "What transpired . . . and will give us a shot in the arm going forward is that we are standing up on principle and just saying no," he said.

The fact that the stimulus legislation keeps moving forward nonetheless has done nothing to dim Republicans' satisfaction. Rather, they sense a tactical victory, particularly in the framing of their opposition to the plan as a clash with congressional Democrats instead of with President Obama, who remains far more popular with voters than does Congress.

GOP Moderates See Political Benefits in Opposing Obama’s Economic Agenda (Alan K. Ota, 2/06/09, CQ)

President Obama’s enviable poll numbers have yet to persuade moderate House Republicans to back key parts of the new administration’s economic agenda.

The moderates are more worried about the pressures from their right, where the Republican Study Committee is taking names and conservatives are raising the prospect of primary challenges, than about potential fallout from opposing a popular president.

No Republican voted for the Obama-backed economic stimulus package (HR 1) when the House passed it on Jan. 28, and the outlook is not much different for an upcoming omnibus fiscal 2009 spending package, the fiscal 2010 budget and a new financial bailout plan.

GOP leaders say they are less worried about defections now than they were during the departed Bush administration. And they see moderate Republicans as offering a good chance of unseating Democrats in marginal districts.

Dems work to pick out pickups (JOSH KRAUSHAAR, 2/9/09, Politico)

Democrats have defeated so many vulnerable Republicans over the past four years that there are few obvious targets left for them to pursue in 2010.

Following consecutive elections where the party picked up a net of 52 Republican-held seats, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee suddenly finds itself in the unusual position of having to scrape to identify pickup opportunities next year.

There are only five House Republicans left representing districts that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry carried in 2004 — a prime indicator of potential vulnerability — and three of them are already looking at leaving to run for statewide office.

At this point any Republican in the House just survived the least favorable electoral climate for a Republican since 1974. If you didn't lose your seat with Barrack Obama at the top of the ticket you sure aren't going to lose it because he's sniping from the sidelines.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 9, 2009 8:16 AM