If we weren't in the midst of an actual people-crushing economic meltdown - one that, as most economists will tell you, is far more dangerous than we imagine - it would be amusing to watch the political standoff between Barack Obama and the loyal opposition.

It has been, of course, a complete mismatch to this point. The November elections guaranteed as much. Obama has a huge majority in Congress on his side. He has the polls (read: American people) on his side. He's also got, as the song goes, the presidential seal and the presidential po-di-um.

And so, Obama doesn't simply invite a few people over to the White House to watch him sign the massive $787 billion stimulus plan. He jumps onto Air Force One, flies to Denver where he can talk up the so-called green-collar economy, does a rooftop tour of museum solar panels as if they didn't have solar panels back in Washington and then signs the massive $787 billion stimulus bill.

On cue, as Obama takes 10 different pens consecutively in hand, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science crowd goes slightly wild, the TV cameras take it all in and Obama tells the audience that the package is a first step toward "keeping the American dream alive in our time."

These are serious times. If Obama has made a few rookie mistakes - I mean, at this point, why not just dump the Commerce Department altogether? - he has gotten one important thing right: These are serious times that require serious, if extremely expensive, measures.

And the more seriously we take these issues, the more difficult it is for the Republicans to have their side taken seriously at all.

Let's take a quick tour of the day's headlines, in which the American dream didn't always look as crisp as, say, a Colorado mountain vista. For example, General Motors is asking Congress for $12 billion more in loans than originally anticipated - and announced plans to cut 47,000 jobs worldwide, 20,000 of them in America. The market tanked again, the Dow losing nearly 300 points and approaching a decade-long low. And, meanwhile, on another serious front, Obama announced that 17,000 more troops are headed to Afghanistan.

In Phoenix today, Obama will announce a comprehensive, and expensive, response to the housing foreclosure crisis. And coming soon is the next round of bailouts to deal with the financial crisis. That's a lot of crises, all inherited, to face in your first month in office.

But the crises also provide Obama an opportunity, which, if lost, can mean you end up No. 36 on the all-time historian presidential-ranking list. They're serious enough that Obama has taken Joe Biden with him on the trip, which, if nothing else, means at least we know where this vice president is, and can take comfort in the fact that he's probably not breaking any of the Geneva Conventions en route.

In this stimulus package, Obama leaves little to chance, taking on infrastructure, tax breaks ($400 for individuals, $800 for married couples), unemployment benefits, state budget shortfalls (see: Colorado; really see: California), mass transit, the electrical grid (see: IBM commercial) and, of course, alternative energy. When you have $787 billion, you can go a lot of places. For example, he told the cheering crowd, "We have done more in 30 days to advance the cause of health care reform than this country has done in an entire decade."

The advantage is with any sitting president, even those who come to Denver to see old friend Diana DeGette and pronounce her name De-Jette (don't they have pronunciation guides on the new teleprompters?).

But Obama doesn't just take the message on the road, where towns like Denver serve as willing props. He takes it to the Web. The stimulus plan offers

recovery.gov, a Web site that will, uh, track where the $787 billion is spent. There's also Obama's massive e-mail list, which he has already used to send out a message thanking the American people for their "resolve" in helping to see the stimulus package through Congress.

Meanwhile, on talk radio, the big counterpoint is that the bill was so rushed that no one had the chance to read it before the voting. It was a decent talking point the first day, and, for slow readers, maybe two days. But by now, anyone who wanted to read all 1,100 pages - yeah, both of you - could have finished.

It's not a real issue. The economy is a real issue. So, what's a Republican to do? Here's what you don't do if you want to be taken seriously: You don't join the local Caldara-Wadhams-Tancredo-Malkin pig-fest outside the Capitol.

But if Jon Caldara wants to recycle his pig-phernalia equipment from the Ref C debate, you can't hold the national Republicans responsible. They have their own problems.

When the House Republicans voted unanimously against the Obama bill, they were saying at least one of several things: that unanimity was the only way to get noticed (here's a question: Can you be obstructionist if you don't actually obstruct anything?), that the issue is not as serious as Obama insists, that Republicans have a better idea, even if it's an idea that voters overwhelmingly rejected.

In his speech, Obama, invoking Churchill, said it was "the beginning of the end." But it's actually closer to the middle of the beginning. There are more bills to come, bills totaling in the trillions of dollars. To get them passed, Obama has to keep selling to the public, which must be convinced that Obama has the right plan. The sale will only get tougher.

That's why he's taken the show on the road. The trip to Denver was not about convention nostalgia or solar panels. It was a campaign stop in a swing state where the plan, if you were watching on TV from almost any camera angle, is that it should look as if everyone is on his side.