<snip> ...And it's also worth remembering that there's a clear disconnect between the loudest voices on left -- the ones that have been branding Obama a sell-0ut -- and rank-and-file Democratic voters, who still approve of the president's job performance at a rate of about 80 percent. Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan weren't doing that well with their own bases at this same point in their presidencies.
Democrats, by and large, believe that Obama has been operating in good faith. This is different from the intense skepticism that Bush already faced from the GOP base, which remembered him as the moderate who blasted Reaganomics as "voodoo economics" in his 1980 presidential campaign, when he made his deal with the Democrats. In raising taxes in '90, Bush was confirming what the right had long suspected about him. Obama, though, has more wiggle room with his party's voters. Which is why the concessions that he won from the GOP are so important. As part of the deal, expiring unemployment benefits for millions of Americans will be extended for 13 months. Just as importantly, there is now a real prospect that the Senate will act on repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and ratification of the START treaty before this month's lame duck session ends. Is extending tax cuts for the richest Americans (and blowing another hole in the deficit in the process) a steep price to pay for all of this? Absolutely. But that's politics: Obama took the best deal he could possibly get. And he got enough out of it that Democratic voters, who still like him enormously, can rationalize their way to supporting it (or at least not feeling betrayed by it) -- no matter how much grief Obama takes from liberal activists and commentators.
There's also a longer term calculation at work. Note that the deal also includes a reduction in the Social Security payroll tax and an expansion of the earned income tax credit and the college tuition tax credit. This is on top of the extension in unemployment benefits. These measures have one thing in common: They are stimulative in nature. (So, for that matter, is the fact that middle class Americans won't face a tax hike -- something that would have happened had Obama balked at the deal and played a long-term game of chicken with the GOP). Granted, this isn't the type of stimulus that, by itself, will restore the economy to good health, but it will help -- and it's more than Obama was on course to get from the GOP. The compromise, in other words, gives Obama a chance to take further action to boost the economy and bring unemployment down -- and the more he can do that, the better his chances (and his party's chances) will be in 2012.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/barack_obama/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/12/06/obama_tax_cuts_bush
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