Drum:

There’s no question that a stalemate is dangerous for Democrats. For starters, it would hurt the economy, and in an election year that hurts the president no matter whose fault it is. What’s more, voters tend to blame presidents for gridlock whether it’s their fault or not. After all, once Republicans make a counterproposal (and they have: a conference committee to work out a one-year deal before the end of the year), they can plausibly argue that it’s the other side that’s not willing to deal. Both sides are keenly aware of both of these dynamics, and they definitely point in the direction of Democrats caving yet again.

But that’s exactly why I suspect Democrats won’t cave. At some point, whether it’s strictly rational or not, you simply have to let the other side know that you can’t be pushed around forever. And this is about the best chance Dems have had to send this message in a while. Nothing is going to get shut down if they hold out, the nation’s credit won’t be wrecked, and even if takes until January to make a deal it won’t have much effect on the economy. What’s more, House Republicans have shown weakness by making sure the Senate’s two-month deal is still on the table. If they’d voted it down, it would have been like ripping the steering wheel off the car, but they carefully made sure not to do this. And to make things even worse for Republicans, they’re plainly losing the PR battle over this. Even the Wall Street Journal isn’t on their side, and even Mitch McConnell is pretty disgusted over being double-crossed once again by the lunatics in the House GOP caucus.

It would be overly simplistic to state this as being the reason for Obama’s poll resurgence–better economic data probably has more to do with it. But it’s certainly less dispiriting coming from the White House than Plan B/NDAA/EPA smog rules, that’s for sure. As Drum says, standing tall on this one makes sense. It doesn’t hurt that House Republicans have no real argument for abrogating the deal–not wanting Obama to talk about it in the State Of The Union is dumber than dumb, since hardly anyone watches those anyway.

I’m very hesitant to start envisioning a 2012 campaign waged amidst a visibly improving economy–green shoots have been falsely spotted so many times that I just don’t dare to hope for it. But my guess is that even modest improvement would really scuttle Republicans’ chances, heightening some fierce, existing divisions that Republicans have unwittingly fostered. An abrasive, Tea Party-style fusillade would be an incredibly poor fit for that sort of electoral environment, something of which Republican elites seem quite aware of, hence their support of Mitt Romney. But they’re not just going to stop having a Tea Party because Mitt Romney says so. There are some very real divisions there that could be exploited, Nixon ’72-style. After all, that’s basically what the current fight is about now, an intra-Republican debate that everyone else views with bored contempt. Nobody cares about that kind of stuff.

Also, under those circumstances you have to figure that Boehner’s majority is completely fucked (and might be regardless). Something to give me a little hope for the future, at least.