Obama on the hill

Politico has the conventional wisdom on today's visit by President Obama to capital hill to meet with congressional Republicans in both the House and The Senate.
It's really good politics by Obama, who continues to push the Republican minority out of the mainstream in terms of approval by the public and more into the wilderness by equating them with the far-right Limbaugh wing of he party for being opposed just for the sake of being opposed.
Just by showing up, he's showing that he's not afraid of arguments, and also that, although it's only been seven days, will continue his campaign pledge of acting in a more bipartisan manner towards congress. Something his predecessor rarely displayed, even in the early days of his administration.
Him showing up also forces congressional republicans to blame their democratic counterparts for the failed legislation more so than the president who said he does not "claim ownership" for the bill and was even quietly encouraging Democratic lawmakers to remove some of the family spending elements of the bill, most noticeably the $200 million that was set aside in the bill for contraceptives and birth control funding in impoverished areas, a provision in the bill that was shown as "wasteful" by Republicans, and was their main talking point against the legislation in many of the weekend talk shows.
All in all, I think the GOP have trapped themselves on this bill, and since their minority has shrunk and many of the more moderate members of their party were voted out in '06 and '08, it creates a more conservative minority from safe districts that don't neccessarily need to foster cooperation with The president or the majority congress to ensure re-election.
Many of them may also see this bill as the equivelent of the Iraq War vote in 2002, a vote that came back to haunt many congressional democrats as the war became unpopular and they hope that if the bill doesn't make any or all of the sweeping changes it promises for the economy then the Republicans will have given themselves precious political capital to take the fight straight to Democrats in 2010 and 2012.