Winning by Losing?

Peter Baker writes in The New York Times about the potential political benefit to President Obama of GOP gains on Capitol Hill i the coming mid-terms.

Let there be no mistake: President Obama wants the Democrats to win next week’s midterm elections. His voice has gone hoarse telling every audience that from Delaware to Oregon. But let’s also acknowledge this: Although he will not say so, there is at least a plausible argument that he might be better off if they lose.

...other opportunities could open for Mr. Obama if he can take advantage, according to political specialists from across the spectrum. Either he will find a way to forge agreements with Republicans on issues like the economy, energy and education, or he may be able to play off Congress as an adversary much as Mr. Clinton did with House Speaker Newt Gingrich 15 years ago, and as Harry Truman did with the so-called Do-Nothing Congress decades before that.

Baker's thesis echoes a theme recently put forward by Andrew Sullivan on The Daily Dish.

But in a strange way, the more anti-debt and anti-spending their rhetoric becomes and the plainer it is that serious defense and entitlement cuts are necessary for the problem to be solved, the more I'd like to see the GOP be deprived of their obstructionist no-responsibility posturing of the last two years. I'd like to see their bluff called on spending to escape the current impasse and get to a real debate rather than a phony one. If they win back the House, as it seems inevitable they will, they will have to offer something at last instead of criticizing everything in comically tired tropes and waiting for 2012, as the president is stymied from enacting the reformist change we elected him for.

--Ballard Burgher