I think the biggest winners in the debt deal are the Republicans, especially Sen. McConnell but also the Tea Party-driven House Republicans. They established a new normal where business as usual, i.e., raise the debt limit whenever excessive spending requires it, is no longer usual. They insisted on, and got, spending cuts greater than the debt increase, and they did so while blocking new “revenue.”
President Obama was a moderate winner (the only thing moderate about his administration so far). True, he did not get what he demanded at every opportunity — a “balanced” deal that would include both deficit reduction and additional “revenue” — but he did get the one thing he insisted on and cares about even more than new taxes: he escaped having his record-setting deficits the center of attention in another round of debates on raising the debt ceiling until after the 2012 election. The deal also gives him an additional opportunity to pretend that he is a real leader making the government work, the only adult in the room (what, then, is Sen. McConnell?), etc. Some voters — the ones who have continued to view him as post-racial and post-partisan — will no doubt believe that.
The big losers are Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress. They got nothing of what they wanted, which is still more than they deserve.
