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bruce anderson

\ In this July 26, 2011 file photo, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio pauses during a news conference at The Republican National Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington.AP/Carolyn Kaster

Tremendous amounts of money vaporized, for the moment at least, on U.S. stock markets on Wednesday. Pretty much every expert says the cause is uncertainty about whether or how the US will pay its bills. The U.S. debt clock rises, while the clock on raising the U.S. debt limit ticks down.

Last week came news in a Rasmussen poll that six per cent of Americans are happy with the job that Congress is doing. This raises the question: what do the six per cent see that other folks are missing? Those of us at a distance can do little but wonder at the lurching, uncertain, confidence-sapping process.

There are lots of interesting things about the brawl between the Obama Administration and the Republicans, but one of the most fascinating for the longer term is the debate over the virtue of "compromise."

Across America, according to a new Pew Centre poll, two out of three voters would rather see a deal they don't particularly like, than no deal at all. They think finding a compromise is the job their lawmakers should be focused on.

Now you would think that with such a strong consensus, both parties would grope their way to this result, taking as much time as they can, and making every effort to look resolute about the things that matter to them, but determined to avoid letting their country default, above all else.

Odds are things will still turn out this way, but the markets started pricing in, for the first time, the chance that they won't. One reason is that the political math which seems obvious on the surface, is a more complicated when you dig deeper.

Most highly coveted Independent voters (69 per cent) want both sides to put water in their wine and come up with a deal in three parts: spending cuts, revenue hikes, and because none of these things can work immediately, to raise the legal limit on how much the U.S. can borrow. The vast majority of Democrats (81 per cent) favour a similar kind of compromise.

But only a bare majority of Republican voters (53 per cent) like the idea of a compromise. And this is the root of the current impasse. A sizeable number of Tea Party-oriented, fiscally uber-conservative Republicans are convinced that the path of compromise is really just a road to ruination.

While the stakes are plenty big enough in straight economic terms, how this turns out in the next few days may have a long lasting effect on the U.S. political system too. At its root is a fundamental questions about the role of political leaders and parties. This episode is shining a light on whether a willingness to compromise across philosophical lines, to give up something you want, to get something you need, is a good thing or a bad thing: a virtue, a necessary evil, or just an evil.

It's a debate that has been coming for sometime, and is probably overdue. But for the moment, it means that while President Obama may sleep fitfully with one recurring nightmare, House Speaker John Boehner has two reasons for losing sleep. If he fails to take a compromise, his party faces peril with independent swing voters. If he makes one, his other flank is exposed and his political future may well be at risk.

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