DC political consultant Mike Lux, who is rumored to have given the administration an earful the other night at the Common Purpose (aka Veal Pen) meeting, has some interesting analysis of the deficit deal and where we go from here (courtesy of Crooks & Liars):
As to the President, what is important to understand is that he wanted this negotiation. He had opportunities to avoid it last year, getting this deal done as part of the lame duck budget deal, or at the beginning of this year by making clear that he would only sign a clean debt ceiling increase. But he waded into these negotiations willingly and eagerly, hoping that reason and Wall Street lobbyists would help him craft the grand compromise he was willing to make if the Republicans agreed to raise taxes. It was part of his long-term strategy for getting the deficit issue off his back — Ezra Klein’s piece here (which I have been assured by people at the White House that it very much reflected Obama’s thinking) lays out the thinking: cut a big dramatic budget deal, get the deficit issue off his back, look like a centrist going into the next election. And through most of this showdown, he did look far more reasonable than the Republicans and was doing better than them in the short-term polling. The problem is that if Republicans don’t ever compromise, if they don’t care about being reasonable or not blowing up the economy, the President is the one who would have to fold, and that is exactly what happened. It made him look weak, and it tore a gaping hole in his relationship with his base. D.C. centrists loved his reasonableness, his willingness to reach out, and all those other things praised in the editorial pages of the Washington Post, but even the pundits who were praising him — in fact, especially the pundits that were praising him — turned on him when he lost. Such is the nature of this town.All we need is one bad Dem appointed to the Super Congress and it's over - and you know there will be at least one:
I worry less about Pelosi appointing anyone who would sell us out — her own values and her political smarts are too strong, and the political dynamics in the House give her the freedom to appoint good people. But the culture and clubbiness and tradition of the Senate create a lot of pressure on Reid to appoint people who could be very bad. Sen. Conrad, the Budget Committee chairman, who protocol and tradition say should be appointed, is an extremely conservative Senator who has been happy to cut terrible deals with Republicans in the past, and who doesn’t have to worry about grassroots anger back home because he is retiring. Remember, even one vote from the Democrats is all it would take, and the bill cannot be filibustered once it comes out of the Super Commission. Progressives should be spending a massive amount of time and effort working on Reid to not give a seat to a Senator whose history shows they will sign off on a bad deal, especially someone like Conrad who is very conservative and accountable to no one since he isn’t coming back.And if you own your own place, get ready for a massive tax increase:
The Simpson-Bowles Commission and the Gang of Six both targeted middle-class tax breaks like the home mortgage deduction and health care benefits with the idea of using much of the money to cut tax rates for high-income individuals and big business.If they betray us on the Super Congress, and I can't imagine how they won't, then I think it will be time for people to reassess their relationship with the current candidates in 2012. The NRA and AIPAC, probably the two strongest interest groups in Washington, would simply mark any candidate for defeat who supported a similar deal against their interests. All you have to do is defeat one high profile candidate once, and the rest will fear you for eternity (it's the way the Teabaggers did it). Can we say we'd do the same? Perhaps it's time we reconsidered a relationship with the party that clearly is no longer working.
