Winners are able to think clear when others can't

Jonathan chait describes a conversation with a conservative as to why the Democrats don't press their obvious advantage on the current tax cut issue:

A while ago, I was corresponding with a conservative -- a real conservative, not a liberals' idea of a conservative -- about why the Democrats won't do the obvious thing. He was at a total loss. He attributed it to exhaustion and demoralization keeping them from thinking straight. That's the best explanation I can think of.

The obama team keeps thinking that Democrats will support them no matter what, so therefore they should pursue the political middle. Well this past midterm should have shown them that some people will just stay home. They need to pursue winning political strategies and stop negotiating with themselves. If one side says, "no compromise", you side can't say "let's compromise". That's lose-lose.

If Republicans don't want to compromise then we should do the right thing which is:

pass middle class tax cuts or nothing else.

Politically and policy wise we'd be better off letting all the tax cuts expire rather than giving in to terrorists.