Off the table

Jeff Liszt, of the respected Dem firm Anzalone Liszt, has just completed a poll for two liberal-leaning groups — which I wrote about below — finding that the Paul Ryan plan is deeply unpopular with voters, and particularly with seniors and independents, when Ryancare is described to them. The poll also found that Obama and Dems have increased their advantage over Republicans on Medicare, on health care in general, and on who can be trusted to defend the middle class.

I followed up with Liszt to ask whether his polling indicated that Dems could lose those advantages if they agree to a deficit reduction deal that cuts Medicare benefits and shifts costs to seniors. His answer was unequivocal.

“Agreeing to benefits cuts takes the foot off the gas in terms of going on the offensive against Republicans,” said Liszt, who did the poll for the Herndon Alliance and Know Your Care. “You have to draw a bright line somewhere and Medicare benefits are the best place to do that.”

[I]n "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War" (co-written by Isikoff), a top White House aide at the time said the president's advisers specifically wanted to use the pressure of the upcoming election to force skeptical Democrats to back the president—or face being portrayed by Bush as soft on national security. The campaign calendar was driving the timing of the vote on Iraq, said the former aide, who asked not to be identified talking about internal strategy sessions. "The election was the anvil and the president was the hammer," the aide said.

...Much of the evidence for the White House political strategy was readily available at the time. It was Rove himself who laid out the administration's plans to emphasize national-security issues against the Democrats in the fall elections that year. "We can go to the country on this issue," Rove proclaimed at a Republican gathering that January, because the American people "trust the Republican Party to do a better job of strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America."
[...]
The most charitable explanation of Rove's comments may be that he was trying to suggest it was Republican leaders in the Senate, more than the White House, who wanted an Iraq War vote before the elections—in hopes of bolstering the GOP's chances of recapturing the Senate. And it is certainly true that by early October, some Democratic leaders, notably then House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, supported a quick vote in order to take Iraq off the table as an issue in the fall campaign.