WASHINGTON — Democrats talked about the jobs to come from modernizing the electric grid, weatherizing homes, and repairing roads and bridges. Republicans too had ideas for reviving the economy, focusing on tax cuts and carefully targeted spending. But many in the GOP also wanted to talk about something else: sexually transmitted diseases.
As the House on Wednesday gave President Obama the first big legislative victory of his term, it was clear that his efforts so far had not delivered the post-partisan era that he called for in his inauguration address, when he proclaimed an end to the "petty grievances" and "worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
The fault lines of past ideological wars were in view during the fight over the $819-billion stimulus package, with shots coming from well-known conservative warriors such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge.
The familiar machinery of partisan politics, a fixture of the Clinton and Bush eras, kicked into operation undaunted as Republicans began running a TV advertisement in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, charging that his support for the stimulus bill was tantamount to "wasting our hard-earned money."
In a series of news releases, GOP campaign operatives challenged Democrats on why a bill aimed at an economic crisis also contained money for education programs on sexually transmitted diseases -- a question posed all day atop the Drudge Report website that has for years helped conservatives drive their message.
And despite Obama's high approval ratings and his efforts to court Republican support for the measure, the old tactics seemed to have some effect. Not a single Republican voted for the stimulus package, and even a few conservative Democrats and some freshmen took the risk of opposing a popular new president from their own party.
"It's a very conservative district," said one rookie Democrat, Rep. Walt Minnick, describing his Republican-leaning constituency in Idaho. Minnick, sitting in the still-undecorated House office that he moved into two weeks ago, said many people in his district listened to talk radio. "They listen to everybody, of course, and I'm influenced by them."
