POLITICO.COM : Obama is a political bridge builder : Obama remains committed to actually cutting a deal — and might ditch his rhetoric if the Republicans present him with a viable opportunity to pass something big.

.

Over the past two weeks, Obama has convincingly channeled FDR, winning over suspicious liberals, even if many suspect he will eventually return to his old, compromising ways.

POLITICO.COM
Obama sparks middle-of-road rage
By GLENN THRUSH
September 21, 2011


Obama sparks middle-of-road rage


Some excerpts :

To critics, Obama’s advisers have a pithy message: Stop whining. Get tough. Republicans have never been willing or capable of cutting a meaningful compromise.

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

“I don’t think we have to cede one inch of territory to the other side among independents when it comes to the tax changes,” an administration officials told POLITICO. “The public is on our side.”

The numbers mostly bear that out. On Tuesday, Gallup found that a majority of Republican respondents — who disapprove of Obama by a four-to-one margin — actually favor four of six ideas proposed by Obama over the last few weeks: Closing some corporate loopholes and raising taxes on big businesses, using federal money to avert public employee layoffs, infrastructure spending and payroll tax cuts.

...........

John Avlon, a onetime adviser to New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who authored a book on the future of centrism in American politics, suspects Obama remains committed to actually cutting a deal — and might ditch his rhetoric if the Republicans present him with a viable opportunity to pass something big.

“He’s a bridge builder by self-conception, and I don’t think dramatically changed,” says Avlon. “The real question is what happens at the negotiating table.”

Stan Greenberg, another former Clinton pollster who studied the voting pattern of Reagan Democrats, is less sanguine about the possibility of a deal.

Instead, he advises Obama to keep hammering away on the tax equity issue and thinks the message will eventually break through to disaffected middle-class voters wary that Obama will eventually hike their taxes.

“David Brooks and some of these other analysts view independents as monolithic, they think these voters want a post-partisan world of rational decision-making,” says Greenberg. “In fact it’s a very diverse, volatile group with a populist streak that wants to see the rich pay their fair share… And people forget that Bill Clinton got elected in 1992 by promising to cut spending and raise taxes on the rich.”

........