If you want to have a good negotiating position you don’t signal publically beforehand that you are comfortable to give up specific demands that you made in the past.
The speculations referred to what smart observers following carefully the DC chatter believed would happen, not the official public statements. Or rather, it is the impression I got from reading some such observers. This more recent post implies that I was wrong and that a December deal raising taxes is looking plausible after all.
You are making a mistake if you consider journalists to be “smart observers”. Just look at science journalism.
Science is even a field where scientists don’t have much to gain by deceiving journalists about the true nature of their scientific findings.
Politics is on the other hand a field where a lot of actors have a lot to gain by getting journalists to write stories that don’t accurately reflect the truth.
If you want to have a good negotiating position you don’t signal publically beforehand that you are comfortable to give up specific demands that you made in the past.
You rather negotiate mostly in secret.
The speculations referred to what smart observers following carefully the DC chatter believed would happen, not the official public statements. Or rather, it is the impression I got from reading some such observers. This more recent post implies that I was wrong and that a December deal raising taxes is looking plausible after all.
You are making a mistake if you consider journalists to be “smart observers”. Just look at science journalism.
Science is even a field where scientists don’t have much to gain by deceiving journalists about the true nature of their scientific findings. Politics is on the other hand a field where a lot of actors have a lot to gain by getting journalists to write stories that don’t accurately reflect the truth.