President Barack Obama broke Republicans once on taxes — and his risky strategy for winning the sequester fight assumes he'll do it again.
He will divide, isolate and defeat Republicans using all the powers of his office and all his skills as a political campaigner. As Americans grow frustrated with the cuts, Republicans will reject their party's no-tax mantra and demand that Congress end the standoff, even if it means raising some new revenue – just the way Obama is demanding.
Obama's trying to speed this result, by releasing state by state details of the pain and suffering the sequester will cause, all meant to get Republicans to cave. And he's got the biggest megaphone, hammering this message over and over in a way the divided Republican party cannot.
Except that message could cut both ways.
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