By Craig Andresen on April 9, 2011

In the dark of the night with but an hour to go before a shutdown, a deal was struck to keep our government open for business. Boehner made a brief announcement followed by the president’s campaign style announcement followed by a bland and often repetitive oratory by Harry Reid on the floor of the senate.

Now, as the sun rises on the day after, social media is abuzz as conservatives, republicans and Tea Party faithful clamor about being sold out. How could Boehner cave like this? Boehner has to go. The cuts are too small. We lost. It’s all there floating in cyberspace for all to see.

I’m a big picture kind of guy. Maybe I’m a silver lining optimist too. I tend to step back and examine the situation not just for what it is but for what it means as we move to the next step and what I see in this provides hope.

In a sense, a real, big picture sense, I think conservatives, republicans and Tea Party faithful can take a good deal of pride in what was accomplished and the jerking of knees is premature.

Did we get Obamacare defunded? No. Did we get Planned Parenthood defunded? No. Did we get NPR defunded? No. Did Boehner cave to the liberals on these key issues? No he did not.

Since the midterm victories by republicans, those 3 issues, Planned Parenthood, NPR and Obamacare funding, have been very much front and center and Harry Reid has been steadfast in his refusal to allow any one of them to be brought to the floor of the senate for a vote. Reid’s feet have been cemented to the floor and because the liberals still have control in the senate, there was nothing that the republicans could do. That has now changed. Boehner, who had been, by the liberals, accused of NOT negotiating actually WAS negotiating.

To me, Boehner didn’t cave instead, he forced Reid into a corner from which Reid could NOT escape. Boehner and his cacus have forced Reid to allow senate floor votes on the defunding of Planned Parenthood, NPR and Obamacare and that is HUGE. Yes, control of the senate still rests in the hands of the liberals and yes, there is a much better chance than not that those 3 issues will not, in the votes, fall the way republicans would hope BUT…

Here’s where the step back and look at the big picture, silver lining part comes into play. Before Boehner…”caved”…liberals were going to win those issues while remaining anonymous as no vote would be required. NOW, each and every last one of them will be FORCED to OWN each individual issue and each and every individual vote they cast. Do NOT forget, MANY of those liberal senators ARE up for election in 2012 and so is the president. They WILL now be FORCED to go ON THE RECORD with their votes and thus, EXPOSE their stance IN an election cycle.

It should also be noted that the senate margin of error in the liberals favor WAS narrowed in the midterms and as such, while unlikely, it is not impossible that republicans could eek out a win on at least one of those 3 key issues.

It is also worthy of mention that a budget deal to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year based on these negotiations makes clear that liberal’s claims that the republicans would NOT negotiate were completely false and instead, the republicans did what liberals refused to do by passing a fiscal year 2011 budget. When liberals controlled BOTH the house and the senate AND the white house, THEY did NOT pass a budget and that too, they must OWN.

Now,  with 5 months left in fiscal year 2011, the wrangling over the 2012 budget will begin and as we know, Paul Ryan and the republicans have drafted a budget which includes HUGE spending cuts. My guess is that it will be tweaked to speed up the timeline to actually balance the budget from Ryan’s proposed 27 year plan to one that comes in at around 12 years but, because they will enter the 2012 budget fray at a time when so many are also entering their reelection campaigns, the pressure by republicans and the Tea Party will have them itching to make substantial cuts.

All of the rhetoric coming from the left during the last week of the stalemate on THIS budget was aimed squarely at the Tea Party and the liberal claim that the Tea Party had Boehner in a box. This serves to expose just how afraid of the Tea Party the liberals are. The bigger they feel is the threat, the heavier they rely on the rhetoric and the nastier they become. While they can’t bring themselves to admit it, they know full well why the 2010 midterm went the way it did and they can see the handwriting on the wall. They know the threat of being replaced by republicans is very real and they know the senate could very well flip as did the house last November.

I suspect that behind closed doors this morning, liberals in congress are fuming and while they will certainly claim victory in the presence of microphones and cameras they know full well that THEY are now the ones in the box and that Boehner was NOT the one who caved. Last week, many republicans in the senate were calling for Reid to step down from his position in the senate. Do not be surprised to see liberals joining them over the next month or so in that call.

Make no mistake, to win the battle, strategy dictates winning skirmishes, exposing the opponent’s tactics and weaknesses, taking hills before taking mountains and gaining the upper hand. This fiscal year 2011 budget was a skirmish. The negotiations exposed the opponents weaknesses and tactics and the deal which was struck an hour before the government would have closed its doors equals key real estate now controlled by conservatives. The mountain is the fiscal 2012 budget for which we will now fight and should conservatives retake the senate and the white house in November of 2012, we will have won the war.