In Debt Ceiling Fight, Obama Has the Edge

[dtotire]

In Debt Ceiling Fight, Obama Has the Edge

By MATT BAI


Last year, President Obama and House Republicans managed to reach a last-minute accord on preserving the Bush tax cuts, and then in April they just barely averted a government shutdown. But now, in this debate over the debt ceiling, each side seems ready to make a stand at last and find out whom the voters really trust when it comes to righting the nation’s finances.

The question is whom you would rather be if this thing does, in fact, escalate into a full-blown crisis. As things stand today, I’d much rather be in the president’s shoes than in those of his adversaries, and not only because he tends to dress better.

I say this because politicians very often get themselves into trouble when they subscribe to what you might call the transference theory of political popularity. This is the theory that suggests that the enemy of the person voters don’t trust is someone they will inherently trust more. Or to put it another way: if you’ve lost faith in that guy over there, and I walk up and kick him in the teeth, then your faith will be somehow transferred to me.

more:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/why-obama-will-win-on-debt-ceiling-fight/

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Woohoo!

[libmom74]

2. This whole "crisis" has been manufactured

and if anything will probably backfire on Obama if he couple cutting the most popular social programs with high unemployment levels. The whole moving further ro the right to attract Indepedents and Republicans while pissing off the base is a very bad idea. Independents like SS, Medicare and Jobs and Republicans will never vote for him.

[Demeter]

3. Yeah. Obama has no Street smarts

and suspect motives. He's done enough stupid, self-defeating things that he really needs a keeper, or he needs to retire and let someone with a clue take the lead.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Well you could hyperbolize it as you do...

but the fact is, when Abraham offered to sacrifice Issac, and God stopped him at the last minute, people fail to mention that Issac never fucking forgot that knife over his gut that day. Oh, sure, the blade did not fall, but it sure as hell would have, and he knew it.

[hay rick]

5. He has some Street smarts.

Wall Street.

The best thing he could do for his legacy is pull a Palin and quit- quit while he's behind but before he's further behind.

[Kind of Blue]

6. KnR! Good article. Thanks. n/t