TAX CUTS: An Obama September Surprise? But after all the anti-tax-cut talk, wouldn’t it just look desperate?

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I think your concise comment on the electoral impact of an October tax surprise is about right. Perhaps it helps to do a thought experiment – What if Republicans, in September 2006, sensing electoral disaster because of the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, had, led by President Bush, suddenly about-faced and begun to withdraw troops? Would they have avoided colossal defeat? I suspect the results would have been worse, actually, since moderates would have been largely unimpressed and conservatives outraged by the treasonous behavior.

As strange as it may sound, I think this election is ultimately about the integrity of the Democratic Party, though it may seem unfair to use that term when discussing politicians collectively. The Democrats misled the Americans, posing as moderates in 2008 but governing like radicals once they won. The use of reconciliation to pass health care reform, clearly against the will of their constituents, only dug the hole deeper. For a party that has proven itself as untrustworthy as the Democrats have a cynical embracing of the opposition’s agenda at the last moment might turn a looming disaster into a super-duper disaster squared. After all, mightn’t voters decide that if they are going to get the Republican agenda, they might as well have the Republicans implementing it?

Indeed.