It seems the Democrats inside the Beltway, some of them anyway, are nervous. The economy is tanking, the recovery isn’t happening, and they are going to get run out of town by the voters. So what was an election-season stunt is now a “no, nevermind.” The Washington Post reports:

With the economy rapidly weakening, some senior Democrats are having second thoughts about raising taxes on the nation’s wealthiest families and are pressing party leaders to consider extending the full array of Bush administration tax cuts, at least through next year.

This rethinking comes barely a month after Democrats trumpeted plans to stage a high-stakes battle over taxes in the final weeks before the November congressional elections.

It seems they’ve discovered that raising taxes in a hobbled economy is a bad idea. (“A growing cadre of Democrats – alarmed by evidence that the recovery is losing steam and fearful of wounding conservative Democrats in a tough election year – are advocating a plan that would permanently extend tax cuts benefiting the middle class while renewing breaks for the wealthy through 2011, senior Democratic aides said.”) The left is going bonkers at the possibility that the Democratic Party would concede a central philosophical point and give up a last-minute gambit to save legislators’ skins. They are worried about the debt all of the sudden:

In an op-ed this week in the Financial Times, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress and Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, argued that extending the high-income tax breaks even temporarily would send a bad signal to investors worried about rising U.S. debt.

No concern about the debt while Obama was on a spending spree. And didn’t they argue the stimulus was too small? Oh, consistency and the hobgoblin of little minds, and all that.

Not to fear, dear leftists, the president is with you: “Obama administration officials and the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, meanwhile, say they are determined to stay the course and still hoping to spend September and October on a debate that forces Republicans to defend expensive tax breaks for a tiny, wealthy minority.” Economic literacy has not been their strong suit, and neither has winning elections.