Sure, but whatever the conditions, it was an originally Republican idea and from your account, a proposal based on the very compromise that was being sought in this situation. Therefore, Obama took an originally Republican idea - one with a history of being used as a point of compromise by Republicans and proposed his bill with it which directly counters the point that I addressed.
Which would make sense, if he was tring to work with early 90's Republicans.
The Republican Party, policy ideas, and views have changed...as have Democrats...since the 90's. There's little difference between pulling something from there and pulling something from 1970 and suggesting that "You're using a Republican idea". Hell, by this mindset, the Republicans are offering a "bipartisan compromise" to Democrats with regards to extending the Bush Tax Cuts because Tax Cuts were a Democratically pushed idea under Kennedy.
An UNACCPETABLE compromise position from nearly 15+ years ago (the bill that largely is referenced that included this in it was, quickly after it's inception, actually disavowed by many republicans) being floated to an largely different group of Republicans in an entirely different political climate isn't exactly a smoking gun.
Not to mention...nothing you've stated that such inclussions were anymore for the benefit of getting REPUBLICANs at it was for getting Democrats to vote in favor of it.
I agree and yet the fact still remains that it was a Republican idea.
Was
The "fact" remains that it wasn't until he added those past "republican ideas" in that he was able to get enough
DEMOCRATIC support to get his bill passed. So you provide no more evidence of him trying to woo over Republicans than there is to the notion that he was simply trying to woo over those in his own party that wouldn't go along with him.
However, it is not relevant for determining whether or not it was a Republican idea put forth by Obama as a potential compromise.
It is important to determine whether or not the "potential compromise" put forth was one done with any actual intention or desire to win over Republican support or not. Floating an idea that's 15 years old and came about when a Republican Majority was something slightly less rare than a Dodo Bird and expecting that a crop of Republicans who have witnessed and possibly experienced multiple instances of majority control and whose POLICY ideas and views on the matter had plenty of indiciation of shifting since that time is hardly a "compromise" that a reasonable intelligent person should've expected to be accepted by the Republicans.
Know who it was reasonable to expect it to win over....
The moderate Democrats who weren't going along with the Administrations original drafts.
Know who it actually did win over?
Moderate Democrats who weren't going along with the Administrations original drafts.
Now one could argue that Obama proposing formerly Republican ideas that current Republicans aren't going to accept is not a legitimate attempt for compromise. However, that argument would be based on the premise that the Republicans would take any compromise with significant benefits for the Democrats, which I think is a false premise, particularly given the idea you've laid out about the shifts that have occurred within the parties over the last 20 years.
Well, no...it's based on the premise that Obama knew full well that including a policy idea previously pushed forward by Republicans almost 2 decades previously in an entirely different political climate that even THEN ended up not getting significant support and in the end had republicans fleeing from it was unlikely to actually gain any real Republican support, but WOULD win him the Democratic support he needed, thus being able to get something passed while claiming he was working for "bipartisanship".
I agree with most of that. However, I don't believe that bipartisanship is possible, at least on significant issues. Well, I believe it's possible in the sense that I believe anything is possible, but I don't think the possibility exceeds 1%.
Perhaps when it become clear that the Republicans weren't interested in the compromises Obama had to offer, his administration focused solely on getting moderate Democrats, but I do believe that he initially attempted bipartisan support because he was naive and in some ways, in love with the idea of becoming the President who would change Washington and unite the country. He didn't do that, unsurprisingly.
We agree in part on the premise but not the execution. I think he naively thought he was going to be able to truly "change" washington and "united" the country through "bipartisanship" as well. However, I think he naively saw "bipartiasnship" as a notion that "I won" and so I'll throw a few token scraps that I find palatable onto the table and because "I Won" and because I'm going to "Change" politics the Republicans will simply accept it. When they wouldn't accept table scraps he tried to simply go about it his own way...and then realized that he didn't even have support for that within his own party. Which lead to needing to win over the moderate democrats and using the table scraps thrown out to Republicans and the concessions made to get the moderate Democrats as a means of cover for attempting to push for "bipartisanship".