If You Want Liberals to Like a Deal, You Need to Invite Liberals to the Table

I'm not surprised that liberals don't like the Simpson-Bowles proposals and I'm not surprised that people who aren't liberal disagree with liberals about that. But I am surprised that there are people out there professing to be surprised that liberals are hostile to the proposal. But what are liberals supposed to think? It's a proposal hashed out between a conservative Republican and a moderate Democrat. So of course liberals don't like it. Imagine the conservative reaction to a deficit proposal written by Lincoln Chaffee and Russ Feingold.

That's not to say that pursuing a conservative-moderate deal was a bad idea. Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals by a large margin and moderates are a much bigger force in the Democratic coalition than in the Republican one. So if you want a deal, appointing an orthodox conservative Republican and a moderate Democrat from North Carolina makes a lot of sense.

But it also makes sense that liberals won't be happy with the results.