Countdown to the Fiscal Cliff

I had John Hawkins' excellent post at the sidebar blog item finder, but I keep thinking about his comments as the fiscal cliff debate continues. This should be up on the front page: "5 Ways The GOP’s Poor Political Decision Making Helped Create This Fiscal Cliff Mess + Why I Would Have Voted For Boehner’s Plan B."

Bottom line for me: the GOP's all messed up and it's going to take some structural reforms at the organizational level to start turning things around. John's right: the Democrats won the public relations battle on higher taxes for the wealthy. Obama sees raising taxes as his mandate. And he correctly perceives the weakness of the Republican position and the obvious fractures within the GOP conference on the Hill.

More from Karen Tumulty, at the Washington Post, "Tax fight sends GOP into chaos."

And at the New York Times, "News Analysis: Still Bitter About Election, Republican Opposition Unwilling to Compromise with President" (via Memeorandum).