Obama's Big Win
Day 25
Feb. 13, 2009
"This is not the smart approach. The taxpayers of today and tomorrow will be left to clean up the mess."
—Mitch McConnell, Republican Senator from Kentucky, after the stimulus narrowly passes both chambers of Congress
After 25 days of pushing, Obama finally gets what he wants — Congress' approval of a $787 billion economic-stimulus measure, meeting the mid-February deadline Democrats had set early for themselves. Not a single House Republican and only three Senate Republicans vote in favor of the legislation, despite massive efforts by Obama to court their support. The Senate vote appears to be the longest congressional vote in history, taking five hours and 17 minutes as they wait for Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio to return to D.C. to cast his "Aye," giving the Democrats their 60th vote.