From a Tribune Co. report, this passage seems to signal the most reasonable and promising path forward:
[Obama] met Wednesday with two Senate Republicans and a Democrat considered to be key moderates: Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Maine Republicans, and Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat.
The three are part of a group of senators seeking to “scrub” the bill to remove programs that are not likely to give the economy an immediate boost.
Snowe, who spoke with reporters afterward, said there may be $100 billion in programs that would have to be removed before some of the moderates could support the measure. Obama was “very amenable” to her suggestions, she said.
It’s high time, I think, that we all start acting like the adults in the room (i.e., Snowe, Collins, and Nelson, among others) — strip our blog discussions, media reports, Congressional and Presidential speeches of their all-too-familiar and convenient battle language — and put some energy behind this evolving “middle ground,” where nobody gets everything they want, but everyone gets something worthwhile.