House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was on CBS News this morning, and Greg Sargent saw him strike a cooperative tone:
Some have already observed this morning that Obama's call for simplifying the corporate tax code was a way to box Repubilcans in by getting them to reveal what they'd be in favor of in specific policy terms. Combine that with Obama's call for a spending freeze and you may see it become tougher for Republicans to draw the sharp contrast between themselves and Obama that they'd been drawing last year and in the wake of the "shellacking." The devil will be in the policy details, of course, and there are still massive and unbridgeable differences between Obama and the GOP. But Cantor, for one, clearly wants to telegraph a willingness to compromise with the President in a way that Republican leaders like McConnell and Boehner have been unwilling to do.
As a matter of short-term political tactics, I don't think it's wise for Cantor to signal any willingness to cooperate. Presidential speeches rarely do much to move public approval, but insofar that they do, it's when the opposition fails to oppose. As far as the short-term is concerned, the smart strategy is to relentlessly oppose everything; when the public sees sharp opposition, even reasonable policies appear partisan. If Cantor's goal is to move the GOP back into a position of public prominence -- after a string of presidential victories -- then accommodation is the wrong move to make.
-- Jamelle Bouie
