The Republicans lost the symbolic war over taxes when going back to the Clinton tax raises became uniformly known as keeping the Bush tax cuts. What Republicans should have done was ask that Obama not go back to the Clinton tax raises — that would have been a better way to put it.

And instead of allowing Obama to talk of the “rich,” they should have asked him how much the rich person who makes $250,000 in New York or California actually makes, since payroll, state, and federal income taxes, well before increases and health-care surcharges, can easily top 50%. Keeping the “Bush tax cuts for the rich” sounds much better than “Not going back to the Clinton tax hikes.”