The fast-track passage of the $787 billion recovery package was a huge political achievement, but one marred by a number of headline-dominating screw-ups they’ll need to avoid in the future. The legislative lightning round also revealed successful new strategies to pursue—and the bracing reality of a unified, recalcitrant opposition.

Here are seven lessons the Democrats should take from the stimulus, culled from two dozen Politico interviews with the people who hammered out the deal:

1. House Republicans are furniture
Over and over, Nancy Pelosi and her allies privately delivered the same message to Barack Obama: Mr. President, you can have bipartisanship or you can have a stimulus bill, but you can’t have both.

He seems to have gotten the message. House Republicans, badly outnumbered and shorn of lets-make-a-deal moderates by their losses in the two elections, have proven remarkably immune to crossover appeals, as have most GOP Senators.
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2. Obama needs to get out more
Everyone from the White House to the leadership offices agrees on at least one take-away from the week: The stimulus regained its forward momentum only when Barack Obama used his superlative communications skills and sky high approval rating to sell it.

3. Sixty is the new speed limit
It’s already Congressional cliché to say that the three most powerful people in Washington are aisle-crossers Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

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