BipartisanThink Takes a Counterfactual Turn

I wrote yesterday about how the Principle of Seriousness helps maintain the true path of BipartisanThink by ensuring that no matter how unreasonable the GOP becomes on fiscal issues, neither party is proposing serious solutions because the GOP is being intransigent and the Democrats are failing to come up with proposals that stand a chance of overcoming GOP intransigence. Josh Kraushaar in National Journal takes a more imaginative stab at maintaining BipartisanThink on sequestration by trying to ponder how a Romney administration would handle the situation: More importantly, a close look at the composition of both the Senate and the House suggest the numbers would be there for Romney to pass some combination of spending cuts and the closing of tax loopholes, as he called for in the 2012 campaign. In the Senate, Romney probably would have courted the 12 red-state Senate Democrats, six who are up for re-election in 2014, to support some type of compromise. In the House, his task would be winning over recalcitrant conservatives. If House Democrats were united in opposition, he could afford 17 GOP defections, probably more if the few remaining moderate Democrats joined with the GOP....