British Telegraph : US debt crisis : Obama looks like a winner - A centrist reborn : Obama is reaching out to independent voters - The 11th hour deal could save Obama’s presidency. In the popular mind, it has turned Obama from a liberal into a moderate.

.
British Telegraph -
US debt crisis: Barack Obama looks like a winner -
The Republican Party seems guilty of delaying the debt deal, while the President has won the centre ground. -
A centrist reborn: Barack Obama is reaching out to independent voters -


By Tim Stanley
August 1, 2011


US debt crisis: Barack Obama looks like a winner


Some excerpts :

The 11th hour deal struck between the Democrats and the Republicans to raise the US debt ceiling could save Barack Obama’s presidency.

..............

In order to win the battle, the Republicans played a high-risk strategy. As a result, they may have lost the wider political war. The brinkmanship of the debt-ceiling talks has created a new narrative in American politics. In the popular mind, it has turned Obama from a liberal into a moderate, and the Republicans from free-market rationalists into economic vandals.

To get what he wanted, John Boehner pushed the country to the brink of defaulting on its debts. Ironically, the party of business came close to ruining America’s reputation as a place to do business.

...................

Pessimism about economic recovery and a palpable desperation for investment has made the average American voter wary of this kind of risk-taking. According to a recent CNN poll, 63 per cent of Americans do not believe that the Republicans have acted responsibly during the budget talks and 51 per cent say that the Grand Old Party will bear the brunt of the blame for any economic fallout. Only 30 per cent blame Obama for the crisis; 15 per cent blame both sides. There might be a demographic dimension to those statistics. Republican or Tea Party voters are largely white and old, and they are dying out. In contrast, the pool of Hispanic, African-American or poor voters who rely on the kind of government benefits imperilled by the crisis is growing fast. In many regards, the United States is becoming a social democratic nation by default.

.................

From the opposite wing of the Republican field, Mitt Romney stayed away from the debate and cemented his image as an opportunist. The loudest voice from the primary field was the Tea Party heavyweight Michele Bachmann, who opined that the US government had “spent its wad” and was beyond fiscal redemption. In short, the new focus on Obama v Boehner has exposed the Republican presidential contest as the political equivalent of amateur hour.

...............