Our political Quote of the Day comes from NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg who in their indispensible First Reads analysis point out that Democrats could face serious political consquences if they reject President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans:
*** The Democrats’ tax-cut dilemma: On the tax deal, do some Democrats realize that perhaps the biggest danger of not cutting this deal is ceding the economic debate to the GOP for at least one election cycle, if not more? Play it out: Dems decide to fight and get nothing when the tax cuts expire at the end of the year. Then, on Jan. 6, the new GOP-led House “comes to the rescue” and passes legislation to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. So say the economy recovers a bit but not gangbusters. Well, the GOP will criticize Democrats for creating uncertainty at fragile time. Or say the economy recovers gangbusters in 2011-12, the GOP will have an argument to take much of the credit. Bottom line: If Democrats line up and try to kill the compromise, the political price they could pay might be much higher than they fathom as they’ll be on the wrong side of the economic argument — no matter the outcome. At least they can control the process for now.
But the Democrats’ other dilemma is as a party. The party has often been pulled by tensions between its liberal/progressive wing (choose the word that you like to use since “progressive” came into favor after conservatives turned “liberal” into a word that liberals ran away from even though conservatives do not run away from “conservative.”) and more centrist or even conservative elements, even in the 20th century. There have always been some in the party absolutely convinced that the vast majority of Americans are liberal even though polls show no such thing. In fact, polls suggest that the bulk of Americans would like to see governmnent work better and parties try to reach solutions so problems are if not solved then eased. And there is a “center” in America that may shift right or left but seldom as left as the party’s left wing has desired — or thought.
The smart money would be on the Dems being wise enough to pass it. And one commentator, talking on a program carried on XM Radio, noted that there is an undercurrent in Congress right now that for all of the talk of defiance the measure will pass: Democrats will go along with it. They can’t be so short sighted to fall into the trap outlined by Chuck Todd & Co. outline above. (Or could they?)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.