Everything, in fact, works in their favor by simply waiting Dems out.

Charles Krauthammer theorized (his theories are usually based on being pretty well connected in Washington Republican circles) that Boehner and McConnell got wind of the Democrat scheming on this issue and pulled the plug on this week's "bipartisan White House meeting". They believe that time is on their side on the tax issue. The closer we get to massive tax increases, the more pressure on Dems to cave.

Krauthammer also said that the current Republican position is four year temporary extension of all of the Bush tax cuts.

If Obama does that, the Dem leadership should send in the men in white coats to take him away. Oh, wait... nevermind... the Dem leadership just decided that it would be a swell idea to keep Pelosi as leader. They are crazy, too!

I'm just trying to help 'em out, that's all.

Many Dems would vote "no" to a scheme to raise taxes with the country deep in an economic downturn. In other words, the Dems don't have the votes for Trumpka's scheme. If they had the votes, they would have rammed it through before the lame duck. If you recall, Pelosi had to adjurn the House to prevent a vote on extending current tax rates for all Americans.

BTW, the folly of this strategy is that it would also be forcing many Democrats to vote for tax increases on the middle class. Of course, that wouldn't matter in Richard Trumpka's world, but many of these Democrats have to run for reelection in the real world.

Recipe for Dem political success:

1) Keep Pelosi as leader.

2) Turn to Richard Trumpka for political advice.

3) Blame George Bush.

I wonder how many Democrats will start to figure out that Barack Obama is killing their party? Kinda hard to win elections without all those bitter clingy voters in fly-over country. The demographic splits in the exit polling are breathtaking.

I went with 58 seats in the House and 10 in the Senate in an office pool back on Labor Day. I think it will probably be 60+ seats in the house and your 9 looks about right for the Senate.

Hopefully a few Democrats will start to understand that they are wiping out their party, but I'm not optimistic. They'll blame it on "messaging" or some such nonsense instead of pointing the finger where it belongs.

2011 is going to be soo soo ugly in DC. Not a single thing is going to pass.

Thank, god. As long as these congress-critters are so contemptuous of the voters that they brazen admit they don't even bother reading the bills, we should all breath a sigh of relief that they can't pass any legislation.

Maybe blowing up the Senate ramming ObamaCare through reconciliation wasn't such a great idea after all.

The Democrats pulled the doc fix out of their health care bill because they thought the budget couldn't take the price tag. They should live with the health care bill they passed. After all, Speaker Pelosi assured us that we would like the bill, once we found out what was in it. That includes, I assume the 21% cut in Medicare reimbursements and resulting decision of health care providers to stop accepting Medicare patients.

send the chattering class into convulsions.

The funny thing is that this will probably be Newsweek's biggest selling cover of the year (which would take, what, at least a couple hundred copies sold....).

If I didn't know better, I would say that there is some concern among Democrats about the rise of effective women candidates and spokespersons in the GOP.

"I also think that if the US wants to be competitive, the USOC needs Federal funding, and the selected city by the USOC needs a guarantee of reasonable funding for the endeavor should it win. "

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Jesus H. Christ??? Isn't the federal deficit big enough already? Now, the taxpayer is supposed to finance the Obama's thug buddies Olympic goose chase, too. What? Oprah's not enough?

Helluva job there, Barry!

Urgency on climate change?

What's the carbon footprint of flying the Air Force One never-ending campaign show to Europe for 18 Chicago votes? Please. Urgency on climate change?