Compromise Spin Win
by digby
The DNC is pushing back hard on the notion that the Democrats were losers in this debt ceiling negotiation:
The rush to frame the winners and losers in the debt ceiling deal stands in stark contrast to the protracted negotiations over the debt ceiling themselves. On Thursday afternoon, the Democratic National Committee engaged once again, issuing a memo arguing that political pundits got their analyses wrong when they deemed the final result a win for the Republicans.
"The fact is, since President Obama reached a debt and deficit compromise with Republicans over the weekend, CNN and Gallup polls show that a hefty majority of Democrats and Liberals support the deal while a hefty majority of Republicans, and particularly the all-important Tea Party Republicans, oppose it," says the memo, authored by DNC Executive Director Patrick Gaspard and sent to The Huffington Post. "If you’re waiting for the rush of stories, columns and blogs with the inside the beltway intelligentsia admitting they missed the mark on this – don’t hold your breath. The very folks who rush to judgment on these things are rarely in a rush to admit they were wrong."
Going through the actual polling data -- which showed that two-thirds of Republicans and conservatives opposed the deal while a majority of Democrats and liberals approved of it -- Gaspard argues that reporters were basing their assumptions off either faulty or uninformed insight.
"The numbers show that while Democrats and liberals supported the President’s commitment to reaching a fair compromise, Republicans and Conservatives overwhelmingly opposed compromise," the memo concludes. "Of course this should be of little surprise. Poll after poll during the course of this discussion showed that Democrats by large margins favored compromise while the vast majority of Republicans opposed any compromise with Democrats whatsoever."
He's got a point. Evidently, the President is in tune with the Party on this. They do say they prefer compromise over principle. And they say they approve of this deal. So perhaps the President can continue to take this approach in the future without any drop-off in support from Democrats.
But since this "compromise" the Democrats love so much requires 98% compromise from them and 2% from the Republicans (by John Boehner's own definition) they are eventually going to run out of things to compromise --- at which point all these Democrats can simply re-register as Republicans and never have to listen to partisan bickering again. After all, the Republicans are all very unhappy with the deal because they believe they didn't get enough, so they certainly aren't going to ever come around. (Evidently, they were holding out for public floggings of liberals or something and really feel sold down the river on that one.)
I was a dinner last night with a civilian who, when I asked what she thought the president believed in, she said "compromise." She doesn't think that's so great, but the polls indicate most Democrat think otherwise. So if compromise really is the defining principle of the Democratic Party I would imagine they will be very happy to see their leaders strongly holding the line.
But then ... that wouldn't be in the spirit of compromise, now would it? What a conundrum.
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