Obama just addressed the significance of Arlen Specter’s move into the Democratic party, saying, “I am under no illusion that I’m going to have a rubber stamp Senate. I’ve got Democrats who disagree with me.” And boy is he ever right about that.
Republicans see things differently, though, and to them Obama said, “I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine.” He added, though, that he can’t accept a definition of bipartisanship that means agreeing with “certain theories of theirs that have been tried for eight years and didn’t work.”
As an example he suggested that Republicans should work with him on a health care bill, even if they disagree with him philosophically over the need for a public insurance option. That’s an interesting case in point. A number of liberal groups have become concerned that the administration isn’t as committed to a public plan as they’d like, and this suggests, at least to some extent, that he is.
