What he's overlooking is that the Democrats operate according to the Iron Law of Institutions. The Iron Law of Institutions is: the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution.
This is true for all human institutions, from elementary schools up to the United States of America. If history shows anything, it's that this cannot be changed. What can be done, sometimes, is to force the people running institutions to align their own interests with those of the institution itself and its members.
House Republicans don't care what the public thinks about anything. We have seen in on Iraq, on the minimum wage, on SChip, and on and on and on. For most of them, losing power within Republican congressional and conservative movement institutions is far more of a threat than actually losing their seats in Congress. Even in the worst case electoral scenario for House Republicans, only about 15% of the 185 or so of them who are running for re-election in 2008 will lose. By way of contrast, spurning the movement institutions, bucking the party line, and angering corporate PACs has about a 100% chance of resulting in less power within the congressional caucus and conservative politics in general. Voting in favor of something like SChip means that people can lose committee seats, face primary challenges, draw the ire of conservative media, and generally fall out of favor within the institutions of the conservative movement and Republican Congressional minority. That threat is far, far more real than anything the electorate can offer, including defeat in the general election.
Unless you have power within the Republican congressional caucus or conservative movement institutions, there just isn't anyway to pressure Republicans to change their minds on anything. No matter what Barack Obama thinks, there is no way to meaningfully "reach out" anymore. The only solutions are to remove as many Republicans from federal office as possible, and to lessen the power of conservative movement institutions themselves. Anything else is either irrelevant, futile, or both. They just don't care what the public thinks, because the public is not who they answer to. And don't expect that to change anytime soon.
