Repubs believe they are in better position for the debt limit vote but are they??

[kentuck]

Because the people remember the damage they did the last time they tried it. Would they really try it again?

Also, the sequestration vote comes up about the same time as the debt limit. This means a lot of programs will be automatically cut, including defense, if nothing is done. This seems like a fairly good negotiating tool for the Democrats, in my opinion. Nobody wants to cut the bloated defense budget.

Is it possible that the Republicans are going to paint themselves into another corner, just like they did with the fiscal cliff?

Although many on both sides are not happy with the deal that was made last night, it appears that the Repubs are left with the worst taste in their mouths...

[bemildred]

1. Obama is just going to keep saying: "so what it is it exactly you want to cut?" nt

[Lex]

2. They aren't very smart and seemed to be easily out-manuevered.

So I have hope that they will be again on the debt-ceiling issue.

[Cary]

3. One would hope that they would end up paying the price at the polls in 2014

I have more confidence in WE, THE PEOPLE since November. We will not be fooled. We will not be buffaloed by tactics like voter suppression. Moreover the "conservative" flim flam, like Swiftboat Lying and Willie Horton, just doesn't seem to work any more.

Not that they are at all deterred.

Two more years of attrition on their white male demographic shouldn't help them at all.

As for last night, does the precedent of 85 "moderates" teaming up with Democrats bode well for governing, as opposed to obstructing? I just don't know the answer to that Kentuck. I keep thinking that losing will help them hit bottom. I would have thought that would have happened already but all I can say here is that we will see.

[kentuck]

4. If they are too discouraged to make it to the polls...

...because they are pissed off at the taxes on millionaires, then that is fine and dandy with me. It was a terrible mistake putting them in control of the Congress anyway.

[Flashmann]

5. Repubs believe they are in better position for the debt limit vote

Don't they also believe the world is 8000 years old,and flat?.....

[DCBob]

6. They arent.

POTUS is going to demand a seperate vote on the debt limit and any legislation they propose that include other stuff will be vetoed. If they refuse he will simply order the Treasury to ignore the debt limit.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Republicans have done untold damage to their leverage in just the past two weeks

They do not look like a serious political party with their antics over the last two weeks, from their sabotaging of Boehner on Plan B to yesterday's drawn out nonsense with the Amendment process. Then they compounded this incredible strategic error by playing the petulant child on Sandy Relief.

We're to assume that they'll go into the debt limit fight looking like the adults in the room? Part of the intangible benefit of the last few days is that the Republicans in the House do not look like serious negotiators. So if the President says, "Listen, these people won't pay for the debts they already voted for, and I'm not negotiating with them on that," the public is suddenly going to see it their way? I doubt it.

People have claimed that the last few ays have seen the Dems lose leverage on the debt talks. Just the opposite: the Republicans have lost something far more serious than leverage. They've lost credibility.