When Barack Obama created his defi-W cit commission one of its members, Kent Conrad, a Democratic senator, confided to his staff that he thought it had no better than a 10% chance of success. His prediction proved accurate. On December 3rd just n of its 18 members voted for the chairmen's aggressive deficit-reduction proposal, well short of the 14 needed to take it forward to Congress for a vote. Yet Mr Conrad, like many on the commission, claims that this apparent defeat was in fact a victory.
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