Compromising With The Great Pumpkin

The act of compromise, in the context of political reality, starts with a position off center on both sides, and, after negotiation, struggle and movement on both sides, emerges with a result somewhere in between the parties' initial positions, and both parties not entirely happy. Obama's been identified not with forthright, energetically presented initial positions, but with the end result, which is mostly seen as imposed on him to the satisfaction of his opponenets. His base is left feeling abandoned, his opponents emboldened.

After the elections, seems to me the precise need is not for further compromise, but recruitment of the disheartened base, recognizing the opposition as irreversibly obstructionist. And he must make his opponents pay a political price for their tactics and their failure, hanging them around their necks like albatrosses. It isn't as if John Boehner, the future Great Pumpkin of the House, and the others are reticent about their intentions with respect to making him fail, rather than working with him. He should respond in kind.