All efforts by President Obama to get Republicans on board for the economic stimulus package fell to pieces, but will one of his next efforts garner more support? It seems that he’s planning to grab hold of the third rail of politics and attempt to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Depending how it’s handled, he might have the GOP in his corner on this one, unless they truly do plan to be nothing more than the Party of No.

WASHINGTON — President Obama is eager to seek a bipartisan solution to ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security, people who have spoken with him say, but he is running into opposition from his party’s left and from Democratic Congressional leaders who contend that his political capital would be better spent on health care and other priorities.

This month, Mr. Obama unexpectedly approached [Senator Lindsey] Graham when he was at the White House to meet with Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff. Mr. Graham, who was a vocal foe of Mr. Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan, said in an interview: “I know he’s sincere about wanting to do something about entitlements generally, health care and Social Security. And I want to help him.”

Unfortunately, a planned meeting on this (called a “fiscal responsibility summit”) which had been scheduled for next Monday seems to have been “shelved” because of opposition from Obama’s own party. I noticed that Andrew Sullivan seem to be encouraged by the prospect, though.

And so we have a tough-on-spending budget and a desire to convene the long-anticipated, endlessly delayed fiscal sanity summit to make the deal we all know needs to be made. The GOP will have to accept some tax hikes and the Dems will have to accept some entitlement cuts.

It seems to me that a key sign of the Republican party’s maturing back to sanity will be a willingness to join Obama in this endeavor.

Will President Obama be able to bring his own party to the table to finally accomplish something on this front? I will hope for the best, but I must admit to not being terribly optimistic. I still believe that Obama’s original vision for the economic stimulus package was very different from the final product and could have brought along significant GOP support. The deal fell apart when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid got hold of it. The President’s inability to put a leash on them and hammer out a compromise led to the complete breakdown of bipartisan efforts in that field.

Will he now be able to command that kind of party discipline on a topic which the Democrats have fiercely opposed for all of living memory? Again… anything is possible, but I’m not holding my breath.