Many Republicans are consoling themselves over the fiscal cliff fiasco by tricking themselves into believing they can make up lost ground in the upcoming debt ceiling negotiations. After all, they argue, the GOP has the
hostages leverage. If the White House doesn't give into their demands, they can crash the economy.
The problem with this thinking is that the debt ceiling fight -- as was the fiscal cliff fight -- was not a hostage negotiation so much as it was a game of chicken. That is, if Republicans could crash the economy if they didn't get what they wanted, so could the President for the same reason. The question then, was who would climb out of the twisted wreckage and who would wind up on life support.
Polling showed that Republicans would be the ones taking the damage, so it was Republicans who made the biggest concessions. Any hostages held --
and there were hostages -- didn't mean crap.
An old hand at political brinksmanship (and over-the-brinksmanship, for that matter) is warning the GOP that the debt ceiling fight is not going to be the big chance at a political comeback Republicans seem to think it will be...[
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