IMHO -- if you really recommend voting no on the tax deal, you need to have a practical, immediate alternative to the immediate impacts on unemployment, and tax rises for workers that will otherwise take place. If not, then the objections are demagogic.
 
The Left and other components of the broad coalition that elected Obama appear to be splitting and beginning our classic pattern of "eating our young" --- the longtime curse of the US Left. Further this appears to be happening at a time just 20 months before the coming 2012 confrontation with the ultra right.
 
The chief lesson, to me, is the need to UNITE, not DIVIDE, our efforts to consolidate progressives' base both in and out of the Democratic party. We ALL have the same concerns about the dangers and negatives in the tax deal, about the outrageous Republican hostage-taking. But we all also know how weaknesses in the grass roots bases of our movements, the neighbor to neighbor and workplace connections, combined with the difficulties of the fierce right-wing counterattack against Obama and especially his left wing, contributed to the mid-term defeats.
 
Lets focus on the strategies and tactics of rebuilding that MAJORITY base -- at which point any administration advisors advocating ignoring the LEFT can be replaced with stronger voices!