Ezra thinks that the White House should give into Boehner's and Cantor's demands, "even the ones that don't make any sense," in return for an agreement on up-or-down votes in both the House and Senate--with no procedural tricks and delays--on the final bill. A clean vote, yes, but why even enter into negotiations with these guys?
There's little advantage in giving in to the demands of hostage-takers. I like John Cole's advice, couched as a memo to the White House, much better.
I know you all won’t do it, but this really is a gimme. Set up the room with a side for the Democrats, including nameplates, one for the Republicans, including nameplates, and hold the summit no matter what. If they come, you can have the summit. If they don’t, then you can have the summit without them, and can use the time (as the camera pans over their empty seats) to promote the positive aspects of the current bill all while discussing the only GOP plan out there- the Paul Ryan bill. I’d suggest panning the room a good bit.
And if the Republicans don’t take a hit in the polls for refusing to show up, and if the media does not rip the Republicans apart, then you all can take out a shovel, beat bipartisanship in the back of the damned head until dead, and bury it in the WH yard, and start acting like you have large majorities.
The President announced a meeting, and extended the invitation. He's the President, and unless he's negotiating a peace treaty with a foreign head of state, he gets to set the rules. Which, as Greg Sargent points out, is recognized even by Republicans as how this works.
The basic view is that the President would have to say or do something dramatic and eye-popping that would give Republicans an unequivocal pretext for pulling out. GOPers doubt Obama will be clumsy enough to do this, given that the White House clearly wants the summit to happen for its own political purposes.
“I don’t see anybody pulling out at this point,” one senior GOP aide says. “You would have to have something serious to point to as a reason to pull out.”....
A senior GOP leadership aide involved in plotting party strategy added that Republicans were unlikely to pull out because it would make their own intransigence, rather than Obama’s efforts at a course correction, the story. “After a year of demonstrating a commitment to a partisan agenda it’s on the White House to prove otherwise,” this aide said. “We aren’t interested in doing their work for them.”
“We don’t make a habit out of turning down invitations from the President regardless of the merit of the exercise,” the aide continued. “Although we’re not excited about filming an infomercial for the President’s new `bipartisan’ PR campaign.”
That's a nice bit of insight into the GOP mindset--bipartisanship isn't an actual tool of governance, but a PR campaign. Gives kind of a hint as to the potential outcome of this summit, huh? It's not going to bring Republicans on board. Nothing at this point will bring Republicans on board, they're not going to abandon their strategy of "no" in an election year.
So if this thing is going to happen, use it to shine a bright light on Republican intransigence, and as John says, "start acting like you have large majorities," and use them.