The GOP has their talking points, we can have ours.
The President sent a shot across the bow of the American People when he stated that he could not guarantee Social Security and Veterans Benefit checks could be cut.
Your average, a-political person is now aware that the full faith and credit of the United States is on the line. This is a crisis on the scale of the financial meltdown that led to TARP. Yet unlike TARP, this one has the chance of stopping benefits that people live on month to month.
TARP had real costs to Main Street Americans, certainly, but those costs have been slow to develop and were largely indirect. The direct causation effect isn't there in the minds of most people.
The spectre of Default, though, is immediate, present, and could directly cause people to become homeless and starving. The effects will be rapid and evident.
How could this happen?
"Republicans refuse to raise taxes on the Rich."
That's the most succinct description of why we are on the precipice of default. It also benefits from a strongly Populist theme: something that needs to be fostered in the upcoming 2012 elections.
We can, and will, win big in 2012 if the average American is mad that the rich are getting richer while they continue to be sick with worry and privation.
The GOP is at a Crossroads: they have to stay with their money from Wall Street and Big Business, or they have to bend to their nutjob base.
It's anvil-tossing time.
And that simple sentence above is an anvil on Republican sentiment in any Independent's heart.