Now that Congress has passed the tax deal, a battle line for 2012 has probably been set. While a lot can happen in the next two years, President Obama will probably have to make a choice in his re-election campaign. Does he run on his record, or against it?
President Obama has largely vindicated some of President Bush’s major policies on taxes and national security. Those policies are among the same ones Obama ran against in 2008 as the anti-Bush. Will Obama reject the wars he has continued? Will he reject the tax rates he just extended? Essentially, will he run as the anti-Bush again when some of those Bush policies have become his own? Or will he run on his record, mostly vindicating Bush?
My prediction: Obama will run as he did in 2008, his liberal base will follow him even though Obama has continued policies they hate, and Obama will try to use the record he rejects as evidence for the center-right and center-left that he is a moderate. And some of us will point out how absurd that marketing is.
Perhaps the biggest question for the 2012 election, no matter how President Obama wants to frame it, is whether we want our taxes going up in 2013 or not. Think about that, because we will be talking about it again.
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