GOP blocks small business bill. Who will get the blame?

As I've argued a bunch of times before, no matter how many times Dems scream about GOP obstructionism, the jury is out on whether Republicans will take any of the blame for its consequences. Dems run the place, and the public may tune out any argument over Senate procedure as so much Beltway white noise.

The latest: In the Senate today, Republicans blocked a bill to create a $30 billion fund to enable community banks to boost lending to small businesses. Republicans decried the move as another bailout, and it's now unlikely that it will pass before Congress goes home for vacation in August, with little in the way of jobs bills under its belt.

So how will this story play? This paragraph in the Associated Press write-up says it all:

Congressional Democrats started the year with ambitious plans to pass a series of bills designed to create jobs. But if negotiations on the small business lending bill fail, they will have little to show for it just a few months before midterm elections that will determine whether Democrats keep their majorities in the House and Senate.

And there you have it. Is this how the story will be understood by the American people? Very possible.

Republicans claimed Dems blocked votes on the amendments they wanted. Dems countered that they agreed to votes on the GOP amendments, only to have the GOP demand more votes. Get what's happening here? The larger story is all getting subsumed in a bunch of Beltway white noise.

So here's the question: What storyline will the American people take away from all this?

At the press briefing today, Robert Gibbs tried to tell the story the administration's way. Speaking about the small business bill, he said:

"Why on earth would that fall prey to the same old tired partisan politics, unless one side was much more concerned about playing politics than it is about helping this economy along? That is the fight that this president has had to wage in many cases since the very begining of his administration. He will continue to make the tough decisions. And those that are more interested in playing politics rather than helping small business get the help they need, I assume they'll hear from their constituents about how unproductive that really is."

Whatever their substantive objections to this bill, it appears Republicans have calculated that the failure of Dem legislation, and Dem griping about the GOP's role in blocking it, will only feed a sense that government is broken and has failed to deliver, which will reflect badly on the ruling party. Indeed, if that AP paragraph captures the way the storyline is understood by the American people, Dems are in serious trouble.

