Interesting maneuvering by President Obama has smoked the Republicans out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/us...10debt.html?hp
Even the Speaker, the most sensible Republican leader around (as best I can tell), has not made it clear that they really don't care about the national debt. They put a higher priority on cutting Federal spending than on reducing the debt.
I think most swing voters think that trying to rein in the deficit without increased revenue is a fool's errand. And swing voters don't pay enough attention to politics to have realized that this was never about debt to Republicans. It was always about crippling the ability of the government to do it's job. But now anyone can see that. Interesting.
I think this will come back to hurt Republicans quite a bit in the mid-term elections. Obama can make it worse for the Republicans if he comes forward now with a Democratic proposal to cut $4 - 5 trillion off the budget via cuts and revenues and forces a vote on it in the Senate. My guess is that's too much confrontation for him (unfortunately).