Self-Fulfilling Prophets

I should just re-tweet this, but Ezra Klein's analysis deserves the emphasis. Consider, in light of the Register endorsement:

In endorsement after endorsement, the basic argument is that President Obama hasn’t been able to persuade House or Senate Republicans to work with him. If Obama is reelected, it’s a safe bet that they’ll continue to refuse to work with him. So vote Romney!

There’s nothing wrong with the logic of these endorsements. Congressional Republicans really have been implacably opposed to working with Obama and that’s meant Obama hasn’t been able to get much done since Boehner was sworn in as speaker. At times, it’s been even worse than gridlock. The Sentinel notes that “with Obama in charge, the federal government came perilously close to a default last year.”

These endorsements are proving Republicans right. As they show, the Republican strategy to deny the president any cooperation and make his Washington a depressing and dysfunctional place has done Obama enormous political damage. In that way, the endorsements get the situation backwards.

Also consider a view from overseas: UK's The Guardian considers the phenomenon they would call "working class Tories" : an economic underclass voting conservative. "In a country where social mobility is assumed – even if it has in fact stalled – and class consciousness is week the poor may vote in the interests of an imagined, but not necessarily imaginary future, rather than solidarity based on shared economic hardships. "

But again: if you only have time to read one thing, read the Ezra Klein piece.