Much like a pack of wolves tries to isolate a weak caribou from the herd, are the Republicans trying to split President Obama away from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic House leadership? At the New York Times, Carl Hulse certainly seems to think so.
But that will not stop Republicans from trying. On Friday, the leadership sent Mr. Obama a letter urging him to use his first veto on the $410 billion spending bill and the 9,000 earmarks it includes if it clears Congress in its present form.
“Republicans want to work with you to bring spending-as-usual to a halt in Washington and to impose a new standard of bipartisan fiscal discipline that reflects the sacrifices being made by families and small businesses across America,” the letter said.
There was no specific mention of Ms. Pelosi, but Republicans clearly implied her hand was at work with the letter’s reference to “business-as-usual in Washington” and the stimulus “rushed through Congress without any member having read it.”
On the campaign trail, President Obama was pushed into a new position on pork barrel spending, claiming that he was going to work on decreasing, if not eliminating wasteful pet projects and increasing transparency and sunshine in the federal budget process. I have zero expectation that he will force a showdown with his own party leadership by vetoing the spending bills currently under consideration. But this does beg the question, who is really running the show here? Yes, Congress controls the purse and they have the final say on the budget, but the President is the de facto head of his party and should be able to influence the process.
President Obama actually drew some hesitant support from Republicans on his Iraq plan moving forward. Will the differences between the more-centrist White House and definitely left-leaning House majority leadership eventually force some sort of alliance of foes between the President and the Republicans? I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it, but stranger things have happened in politics.