(Community Matters) To be fair, there’s this:
The Economist: Did Barack Obama Lose a Political Battle But Win a War?
The initial reaction, in particular among liberal commentators, was that this was a political loss for Barack Obama, since he gave up more than the Republicans. I initially shared that view, but a colleague notes that this constitutes a loss only by narrow Beltway-based accounting. What will ultimately matter in 2012 is how the economy performs, not whose policies are responsible for that performance. If the economy is booming a year from now, Mr Obama may be seen to have lost the battle but won the war. In spite of their grumbling, the rest of the Democratic caucus may also benefit. As a correspondent notes, “This is a pro-incumbent kind of package. And Democrats have a lot more incumbents running in 2012 than Republicans do.”
Community Matters 