UPDATE: What I present here is a THEORY. I don't agree with this strategy if indeed this is what Obama is doing. It's a theory about political calculation that I think is a tragic MIS-calculation. But read on....
Most of us are sad, disillusioned, bitter, and feeling like jilted lovers since the "The Great Capitulation of 2012" was just announced yesterday. Like many of you, I have spent hours reading through the comments and diaries here on DailyKos as well as the comments to the stories on the New York Times site and other places.
My reaction to all I've read is that, as angry as most of us are right now, this might actually set up Obama's comeback in 2012! 11D Chess indeed. Follow my logic after the fold....
Yes, we all feel cheated, scorned, betrayed and jilted the way spouses feel when they learn their spouses cheat. We now mostly look at Obama as nothing more than a phony in the John Edwards mold, except instead of cheating with a sexual affair, he has decided to "make love" with the Republican captors of his. Truly, this seems like a case of Stockholm Syndrome in action. Obama's Presidency has been hijacked by an Obstructionist GOP that has said NO to all of his initiatives, big and small. So, we see this now as his placating his adversaries by prostituting his values to a group of people who want to destroy him.
But is Obama REALLY that weak? Or is he setting up what could be the #1 campaign issue, and a winning issue, for the 2012 campaign?
My guess? That's exactly what Obama is doing. He and his advisors think that ending favorable tax cuts for the rich IS a fight worth having, just not at the end of 2010 when there are no public votes to be cast. He is kicking this can down the road to be able to campaign on the meme that the GOP and his opponent are the champions for the elite and priveleged class in this country. He will fight a class war against the GOP and corporate elite in order to win himself a 2nd term.
It's a huge gamble, but that's what I think Obama is doing in punting on 3rd down.
It's true that the American attention span is about as long as a moth's life expectancy. Obama knows that too. He figures that his base supporters will "get over it" by the time the 2012 campaign rolls around, and that he will be able to campaign on the following narrative:
"My biggest regret in my first term was having to cede to the GOP their tax cuts, temporarily, for their millionaire and billionaire friends. You see, they held the poor, working class, and unemployed hostage to this tax deal that I had to agree to. I hated it. But now you know who owns the GOP, who has been behind the widening of the largest wealth gap in our nation's history over the past 30 years. We need more FAIRNESS in Washington, and I'm running for my 2nd term to see a Washington that changes its tune to more justice and economic fairness for ALL Americans."
Or a quote such as the above, more eloquently stated, will be coming from Obama's mouth. I simply think, after staying awake much of last night in distress about this tax deal, that Obama would rather fight for the ending of tax cuts for the rich in the middle of his re-election campaign than now, which would long be forgotten by then. His people agree, and think Obama is actually SMART to defer the fight, a winning fight with most Americans polled supporting him on the end of these tax cuts, to when it could actually result in VOTES for him and against the opposition.
It was a political calculation in the "11th dimension"! Very risky indeed, but perhaps a brilliant one IF Obama wins a second term. How else to explain the expiration of this extension for 2 years from now? Why not 3 years? Or 1 year? The administration WANTS to fight the fight right in the smack of election season 2012.
Will it work? Or is what Obama did yesterday his version of betrayal to his base on the same scale as George HW Bush's "Read My Lips" promise?
Personally, I think this is the same debacle as Bush's failed promise about taxes (on the other side of the spectrum, of course). But I'll let you decide, in the following poll.