Obama had to abandon his goal of raising taxes on high earners not because Republicans opposed it but because not enough Democrats supported it. Pelosi couldn't summon up a majority on the issue back in September, and Harry Reid could get only 53 of the needed 60 votes this month.
Democrats, not Republicans, are responsible for extension of all the "Bush tax cuts."
Still, Obama in his surly statement Monday evening and his unusually brief press conference Tuesday afternoon was at pains to attack Republicans.
The president who first came to national attention for expressing respect for those with whom he differed insisted that he was eager to "fight" Republicans and described them as "hostage takers," with the American people as hostages. Not much evidence of civility.
And he addressed most of his remarks to what last month's election revealed as a narrow segment of the nation's electorate, the Democratic base.
Over the years I've noticed that politicians tend to view the whole nation through the prism of their electoral base, even when they know it's not typical. On Monday and Tuesday, Obama seemed to be aiming his remarks at the 13th state senate district of Illinois, which he designed and which is about 60 percent black and 25 percent gentry liberal, not to the political independents who supported him and his party in 2008 and then went heavily Republican last month.
Polls show the most appealing option is protecting middle-class tax cuts. But the second most appealing option is protecting tax cuts for all – what Obama and Republicans just agreed to do for two years – and that makes it a pretty close call, politically.
Complicating matters even further are the changing dynamics of the wealthy and the near-wealthy – or put simply, who is considered “rich.”
High-earners are a much bigger chunk of the electorate than in years’ past. And, at least in some circumstances, they are more inclined than ever to vote for Democrats.
As recently as 1996, when Bill Clinton won re-election, exit polls indicated that voters making more than $100,000 annually made up just nine percent of the electorate and tilted strongly Republican. They backed losing Republican Bob Dole over Clinton by 54 percent to 38 percent.
Just a dozen years later, in 2008, by contrast, voters making more than $100,000 represented 26 percent of the electorate—and many of these affluent voters were Obama backers. For the first time ever, a Democratic presidential nominee tied the Republican for support among the $100K and up crowd. In 2010, Democrats lost this group by 18 percentage points—58 to 40.
There are consequences for the flow of campaign money.
ABC reports:After Obama pushed through major financial reform, some leaders of the investment community like Ken Griffin have voiced their displeasure by serving as big-money backers of Republicans in 2010. A fresh batch of campaign finance and tax records show Griffin and his wife -- herself a hedge-fund manager -- combined to give $500,000 to American Crossroads, the so-called Super PAC organized by Karl Rove to defeat Democratic candidates in the mid-term elections. ...
Records show American Crossroads brought in numerous large contributions from heavy hitters in the financial industry. Jonathan Collegio, the communications director at American Crossroads, said many of the group's donors have been looking to blunt Obama's Wall Street initiatives. They are "folks who are deeply concerned about the direction of the country, and who saw the 2010 elections as an opportunity to put the brakes on the Obama agenda in Congress," Collegio told ABC News. "They believe in our goals of promoting free markets, free enterprise, and limited government."
