President Obama is well-versed in what the Harvard Project on Negotiation call "interest-based" negotiation. His inclination is to try to negotiate from an interests-based approach. In the healthcare legislative effort, for example, he abandoned both single payer and public options because his first interest was finding a way to get (near) universal health care coverage and he was willing to accept other ways of getting there. "The art of negotiation is letting the other side have your way."
Sadly, he was slow to recognize that the other side's key interests consist in obtaining more power, and they have identified the best way to do that is to ensure that the President fails to achieve results.
If this is right then the president, to be successful, has to use his position to frame political debate where his counter-party (the House R's) has more to lose from obstruction than from allowing the President a "win". His payroll tax break extension is a case where he succeeded in doing this. That was just negotiation, successful because he was finally identifying what the other side most cares about, which in this case appears to center less on any particular policy outcome, and more on protecting and amassing political power.
So how does this fit into my title? More below the jump...
No House R can afford a vote to raise taxes. Unless Grover Norquist starts issuing get of jail free cards (and I cannot IMAGINE that happening) there is really no possibility of a "grand bargain" that involves the President's requirement of raising taxes on the wealthiest among us. Such a bargain would involve an affirmative House vote for a tax increase. I just cannot see that happening.
If that's even sort of right then sequestration will happen along with the Bush tax cuts expiring. The markets dive. Pundits and panic ensues; it'll have been building from today.
The trick for the President is therefore to frame the debate nationally between now and then as "I am the reasonable one, here's the contours of my deal, they won't play ball". Critical to winning this "reasonableness" strategy is that Obama present the outlines of a deal. His instincts are not to do this, so as to leave more room for crafting something. But in this case he's not engaged in interest-based negotiation where interests are actual policy, so he's got to win the "reasonableness" contest.
If he's set the table right an opportunity should exist to do a deal. The House R's can vote on something they will desperately want: tax cuts! They do not have to violate the Grover Nordquest pledge, and so inoculate themselves from wingnuttia primary challenges on the right next cycle. The Prez gets a tax increase on the wealthiest among us. If he's really lucky and good he exploits the crisis to get even more out of the deal in terms of his budget priorities. (Hey, if the other side gets to have magical thinking then so do I! Besides, I'm still hungover.)
Sadly, the markets will first take a fairly substantial dive. And there's no guarantee that the wingnuts on the other side won't decide that allowing a second recession is in their interest for the next cycle, so there's substantial risk. But really, is there another path? i'd appreciate your thoughts.