In Defeat, Victory On The Cliff....

Sorry - I can't get too worked up about the "fiscal cliff" deal.  Obama campaigned  - and won re-election- entirely on a platform of raising taxes on individuals earning over $200K  and couples making over $250K.  He opened the "cliff:" negotiations with a demand for $1.6 trillion in new taxes; John Boehner seemed ready to meet him halfway at $800B.

And what did the president wind up with, at the zenith of his power?  Takes hikes on folks making $400-$450K, and a total tax package of  just $600B over ten years.  About 37% of what he originally asked for.  And while he preens about saving the middle class from a tax hike, the reality is that in 2013, every single middle-class American will see....tax hikes.  Starting today, as the payroll tax  jumps by 2%, taking a $150-$200 per month bite out of every working person's paycheck.

And while Obama assumes (correctly) the media will blame the Republicans for everything, Americans are not going to blame Republicans for tax hikes.  The media has already worked too hard to paint the party as "obstructionists" for refusing to raise taxes even further; it would take Orwellian gymnastics to switch the story line by this Friday.  And the American people will not need Polifact to tell them that the president is full of shit (as if Polifact would ever!); their paychecks will remind them of that fact every two weeks.

Conservatives were anticipating a brutal assault post-election, and we got it.  Obama, the Democrats  and the Left-wing media establishment just threw the kitchen sink at us, and yet got very little of what they wanted. We gave some ground in the battle, and technically may have lost, but we did not surrender the city, or the people.

Look around. Tax rates are still near historical lows, and our enemies are exhausted from the fight.  And, by gum, we're still alive.

Almost...unanticipated.

Now we re-group.  Now we re-arm.  Now we fight back.  The debt-ceiling clash is less than two months away, and the time to start prepping the battlefield is today.  Now.  Lay down our markers, advance our narrative, get around the state-run media and explain what we will be doing, and why it is vital to the survival of the nation.

Let's have a plan, and let's execute it.  And win.

And will somebody please tell Chris Christie to shut the f*ck up?  The more he bashes House Republicans for not passing a bill wasting tens of billions in taxpayer money, the more I feel he is not the man to lead the cavalry's victorious charge down the hill...