First Read has a great little feature today about all the House GOP members who opposed the stimulus and, with apologies to Ricky Ricardo, now have some ferocious "'splainin' to do."
We clipped a few items yesterday that mentioned House Republicans who now are for at least parts of the stimulus after they voted against it. Look at this list of House Republicans that the DCCC has tracked:
-- Michigan's Pete Hoekstra's Twitter boasting the $8,000 home rebate (which was a Republican idea, we should say);
-- Leonard Lance (NJ) hoping for money for a local project
-- Greg Walden (OR) advocating for taking the funds for his district
-- Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO) touting "shovel-ready" as well as educational benefits of the bill;
-- Don Young claiming he "won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners" in the stimulus;
-- Ken Calvert (CA) saying he'd take what money he can; and
-- John Mica (FL), who we mentioned yesterday, lauding Obama's dedication to high-speed rail.Huh? This is going to be a tight rope for these GOPers to walk. It's why we thought they'd given themselves cover to vote for it on the second go round when $100 billion had been stripped out. But they were all whipped into voting against, and if these statements are any indication, could be problematic at home.
But, hey, at least the GOP leadership isn't making it harder for them by drawing attention to their "no" votes. Oh wait...
--Noam Scheiber