Headline of article from the Journal: “Republicans See Template for Rebound in Election of Puerto Rico’s Fortuno”

Republicans’ focus on recovering after sharp blows in the past two elections has put a spotlight on an unlikely star: Puerto Rico’s new governor, Luis Fortuno.

As he was sworn in Friday, the Republican Governors Association was effusive. “Luis Fortuno proves that principled Republicans can appeal to voters everywhere,” said the group’s chairman, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. “He is the type of leader the party needs to revive its base and expand its appeal.”

Party leaders view Mr. Fortuno, 48 years old, as an example for Republicans as well as someone who can reach out to Hispanics and other minorities in the U.S. Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan has already made overtures. At a forum Monday, Mr. Duncan said he was inspired as he watched the Fortuno inauguration in San Juan. The governor, he said, “ran a very conservative campaign in a state, a territory, that has severe economic problems right now. But he said, ‘We don’t need these 11,000 new government employees put on by the opposition party. We can’t tax our way to prosperity. We will have family values.’ “

Late Update: TPM Reader JG adds this …

The particularly sad thing over the Fortuño enthusiasm on the Republican side is that while he’s a Republican, he didn’t get elected as one. He ran as the New Progressive Party candidate. Maybe that’s the new GOP strategy; the party brand is so toxic, so they’re going to re-launch under a different name.

So how exactly did Roland Burris walk so easily over that line Sen. Reid drew in the sand? We explain what happened in today’s episode of TPMtv …

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Over almost two years, I’ve learned not to underestimate Barack Obama or assume reflexively that if he’s not following my idea of the best way to proceed that he hasn’t thought up a much better one I hadn’t considered. But it does look to me like he’s ceding the initiative to Congress, which is odd since he’s immensely popular and Congress is wildly unpopular.

Let’s review the stakes. If Obama can pass a big, well-thought-out and clean stimulus bill in the first weeks of his administration, he will have already placed a deep imprint on the course of American politics for years and even decades into the future. If he doesn’t, if it starts dragging out, not only will that not happen, which is bad in itself. But he’ll also signal to a lot of people that he can be stymied even at the height of his power.

Now, before you write in, yes, it’s a bit premature to be overly critical of Obama’s legislative strategy two weeks before he has a presidency to strategize with. I grant you that. But the original idea was to sign the bill on inauguration day, which would have required having a bill already moving through Congress today. Now the marker is being place around mid-February. And that’s being viewed as an ambitious schedule.

What’s more, just watching things get under way over the last few days, there’s a lot of congressional muscle flexing, institutional muscle flexing, you might say, which is understandable considering the doormat the Congress became under President Bush. But I hear a lot of chairpersons and leaders talking about running this bill through a lengthy legislative process, lots of amendments, which undoubtedly means lots of horse trading, and so on.

There are a lot of reasons President Obama doesn’t want to be like President Bush, who repeatedly bum-rushed the Congress into passing his legislation by ramping up hysteria over manufactured crises. But the current situation actually happens to be a genuine crisis, which must count for something. And even though the stabilization of the stock market has calmed political tensions a fair amount, there’s a lot of economic data out there suggesting we’re still in the midst of a profound economic crisis.

Presidents have key windows of opportunity. And this is one of them, perhaps a defining one. So I’m surprised to see so relatively little effort to take the initiative more forcefully with Congress, let alone the greatly diminished political opposition, since left to itself the legislative branch will naturally revert to standard operating procedures I’m not sure we can really afford at the moment.

Now, perhaps they’re being much cannier than I realize, working out of the camera’s gaze to get the Hill kingpins invested in this legislation and do the heavy lifting for him rather than taking a more visibly forceful approach. I hope that’s true and part of me thinks it may be since they’re no fools. But, alas, hope is not a plan.

Late Update: One other point. To get a sense of the my implicit pessimism about the stimulus bill we’re going to get, read Paul Krugman’s recent posts on the topic.

New scrutiny for Obama’s business tax cut proposals.

A bit counter-intuitive. But okay …

From John Harwood’s CNBC interview with Obama …

President-elect Barack Obama confirmed to CNBC Thursday that he plans to lay out a roughly $775 billion economic stimulus plan but indicated that the amount could grow once it gets taken up by Congress.

“We’ve seen ranges from $800 (billion) to $1.3 trillion,” he said in an exclusive interview with CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent John Harwood. “And our attitude was that given the legislative process, if we start towards the low end of that, we’ll see how it develops.”

Obama’s big economic speech is at 11 ET this morning (excerpts here). That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Here’s my question.

In the avalanche of writing about a massive Stimulus Bill, the one proposition (though grandly general) that’s been of most interest to me is one that is heavy on infrastructure spending and spending on R&D geared toward developing a sustainable Green economy. I say this with the understanding that in our current economic plight you’ll likely need a significant amount of front-loading of ‘shovel-ready’ projects, tax rebates, aid to states not to cut critical safety net programs in the short run, etc. But I’m not talking so much about where the bill starts, but where it’s going.

But is there a constituency in Congress for that? Let’s set aside for a moment whether there’s a constituency in the country for that. For the moment, let’s focus more narrowly in Congress.

We were talking about this in our editorial meeting today. And we didn’t have any really good answers. But the key is that I don’t think it really lines up in traditional left-right terms. For instance, it’s not clear to me that the Progressive Caucus in the House is that constituency necessarily. I suspect it likely cuts across established factions among the Democrats, and likely brings in elements of the business community — not surprisingly, the ones who’d get the contracts.

But I want to put this out to readers. Because I don’t have a clear read on it. If Obama rolls out a bill that looks something like that, where does he go for fundamental support for it?

(Meanwhile, as I write, on TV I’m hearing Mitch McConnell and John Boehner laying out their priorities.)

From TPM Reader TD …

My practice group works exclusively in the public sector. Obama’s only constituency in Congress and the nation for bold initiatives, such as Green infrastructure, will come from states (a small handful) that are ahead of the curve on green initiatives. The biggest candidate is CA, where the Governor has already signed legislation that is more aggressive than the federal government, or likely, any other state in the Union. How much congressional representatives from CA are in line with these initiatives is not clear. Other constituencies will be politicians from states with companies heavily invested in green technologies and industries, such as wind farms, solar, and solar thermal (big energy, small footprint so far). Ironically, many of the bigger companies are based overseas.

My conclusion is that the constituency is not ideological, nor is it very deep. Politicians love Green the way they love “tough on crime.” It’s a great ad, and you don’t have to do too much, other than build a few prisons in the latter case, and show pretty pictures of wind turbines in the former. Green initiatives have been seen as a potential boom catalyst. In a global economy that has driven down the price of oil, the national security imperatives that were the strongest political selling points, are lessened. Obama will need to make a case directly to the people and drag a disinterested Congress with him. Does he care enough? Time will tell.

The response does not address infrastructure projects, in general. The needs are great, only because our infrastructure is crumbling. Unfortunately, any coherent, broad financial stimulus for infrastructure beyond roads, airports, and stadiums (indeed) will likely be limited. How about bridges? The electric grid? Hydroelectric (ocean currents)? Nuclear? Trains, regional and light rail? The differences between the Depression and today are remarkable. Recognition of the need for federal stimulus in broad infrastructure areas will require a longer view of the recession, not just short term stimulus, and will likely not be driven by mega-bureaucracies like the WPA in the ’30s. If the recession persists, I may be proven wrong.

Andy Stern: “If Congress needs just three weeks to pass a Wall Street bailout, then we should be able to count on our leaders to pass Main Street relief with as much urgency.”