"Obama wields the Oval invite"

[Clio the Leo]

Obama wields the Oval invite
By JOHN BRESNAHAN & MANU RAJU

<snip>

As the Senate prepares to vote on the plan Monday and Tuesday, the four fence-sitting senators who met privately with President Barack Obama last week — Specter, Snowe, Nelson and Maine Republican Susan Collins — all say they intend to vote yes.

The four senators described their separate sessions with Obama as a “soft sell” — there was no horse trading, no twisting of arms, no LBJ-style browbeating. And there was no one else present — just the president and a senator, alone together in the Oval Office.

“It was amazing,” Collins said of her private half-hour meeting with Obama. “Presidents don’t do that. But it does help to be alone and have a free exchange.”

When the meetings began — on time — Obama started off with small talk, then moved onto his vision for the stimulus plan and his belief that urgent action is needed. The senators offered their own suggestions on how to improve the package, including tens of billions of dollars in cuts from what had been proposed. In the end, these cuts became the basis for the deal that was struck Friday.

“It was very crisp, very professional,” said Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican. “We had a meeting at 11:45 . On the button, I was escorted in. He was in shirtsleeves, which is the way I work in my office. We sat in the big chairs, and we talked.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18569.html

If ONLY Barack's plan to reach out to those who opposed him actually worked! :sarcasm:

[JayMusgrove]

1. Interesting article! I appreciated it. n/t

[jberryhill]

2. "We sat in the big chairs"

No, no, not the comfy chairs!

[Clio the Leo]

3. Isn't that funny....

... I THINK the Oval Office folklore is that Bush didn't allow anyone to sit "in the big chairs" other than he and Chaney and whatever world leader might have been visiting at the time. But that could also be along the lines of "Bush always wore a jacket" urban legend stuff so dont hold me to it. lol

[TlalocW]

7. Not only did they get to sit in the big chairs

But Obama used grown-up words with them too!

Big change from Bush.

TlalocW

[jberryhill]

8. I guess it's okay, now that they are wearing pull-up pants

But you gotta watch Sen. Vitter if he comes over.

[high density]

4. Snowe and Collins always have their finger up in the wind

They were Bushbots and now I suspect they'll become mostly Obamabots. They really seem to have no solid convictions either way.

[liberal N proud]

5. Presidents don’t do that...

Well maybe it's time they did. Thank you President Obama for changing business as usual in the White House.

Now lets hope it spreads.

[Flying Dream Blues]

6. I think we've lost perspective in that the last 8 years of hell do not

constitute tradition. Not to take away from Obama in any way, but to think that other great (Democratic, anyway) leaders used these petty tyrant "rules" and bullying tactics to try to be seen as presidential just doesn't ring true. Or maybe I've just watched too much West Wing. :)