After 2008, there was a possibility that he could have kept both promises in his first term, but to do so, he needed the congressional Dems to show some spine. They didn't. And many of them got creamed in the 2010 election.
And you are correct, as a 2012 candidate, Obama said he would not extend the cuts for those over 250k. And the majority agrees. They either don't know that their taxes might go up, or they too know that the GOP has to reinstate them. I think the latter is the case.
I think this was part of his long term plan.
Back in 2010 when he had to decide what to do with the Bush tax cuts, the media was figuring out how to attack him regardless of what he did. If he extended them, they had one attack. If he let them expire, they had the attack I described ("read my lips"
. The pundits, left and right, took turns complaining about what he would do on both counts.
It was during that period I determined that no matter what he did they would hammer him.
But, when he did the extension, and I saw where the next extension was, I saw how smart he was. The 98% were not willing, at that time in 2010, to give up their cuts, just to get the cuts on the high end to expire. The polling was clear on this.
I got as much as he could for the extension, and then placed the next extension into a time frame in which he held all the cards.
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