Gergen: Slouching toward a solution?

My sense is those calculations won't hold. Yes, Reid will never pass the House and may not even pass the Senate. (Where will Reid find seven Republican senators for cloture?) But by the same token, the Boehner plan doesn't have a bright future, either. Enough hard-line Republicans are coming out against it that it could fail in the House, and if it gets to the Senate, the president and Democrats are so dug in against it that it won't pass there.

What all of this means is that both the Reid and Boehner plans are likely to die by the end of the week, and congressional leaders will then be under intense pressure to unveil yet a new compromise -- that's why they are talking so much. Perhaps the new compromise will blend elements of Reid and Boehner. Perhaps Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- unrecognized as the key figure in this drama? -- will come up with a variation of his old plan, which would have allowed Congress to agree tacitly to increasing the debt ceiling while casting symbolic votes against it.

But there is yet another possibility that intrigues: Will Obama then try to persuade Boehner to go back to the "grand bargain" they nearly reached several days ago. (Question: Was that deal blown up by the sudden announcement of the "Gang of Six" plan? Maybe.) In any event, Obama clearly harbors a hope for a grand bargain.

Indeed, his prime-time TV speech was a strong appeal to his base and to independents to flood Congress with demands for a "balanced," grand approach -- and a rejection of Boehner's new plan. Indications early Monday night suggest that it may have worked: Electronic messages were reportedly pouring in, and Boehner's website (among other congressional pages) reportedly crashed. But it remains to be seen whether the heavy traffic was a grass-roots surge begging for compromise -- or a tea party-led clamor to hold the line.

Still, it seems that partisans in both parties will kill the idea of such a grand bargain -- after all it contains both higher taxes for some and Medicare cuts. Much more likely is a more modest agreement with all the danger that brings for our credit rating -- a blend of Reid/Boehner or a McConnell special.

Finally, what more deserves to be said about the two television speeches Monday night? Very little, frankly. Had they been given a few weeks ago, they would have been welcomed as standard rhetorical fare. But to have such political speeches -- both containing partisan barbs -- on the eve of a crisis struck me as one more reminder of how far we have drifted from the statesmanship of yore.

Americans are rightly angry, frustrated and more than a little scared by this debt fight. It has only confirmed that our politics have taken a terrible turn. And how striking it is to have an emergency that has not been caused by our foes -- but is entirely a self-inflicted wound. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't have to listen to more arguments from politicians -- as well as pundits -- and could actually wake up to a bold, courageous, bipartisan solution?

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Gergen.

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/rjn0GVtiF6Q/index.html

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