5. Syria and the The “Sh-t Sandwich” Theory, embraced by Mark Krikorian, kausfiles and Jon Chait, which holds that Republicans are less likely to want to give Obama a victory on immigration if they’ve been forced to swallow a load of (to them) offal on the budget, on Obamacare–and now, potentially, on Syria. Here is Chait’s elegant formulation:

[M]y analogy here is that if they’re going to try to make their members swallow an immigration shit sandwich, they’re not going to want to feed them a bunch of other shit sandwiches first.

But should Obama lose his Syria vote, as seems likely, the sandwich stops with him. Republicans won’t have to look to immigration for a “win” over the President, opening up the ominous possibility of bipartisan cooperation.. … Note: The competing, opposite “momentum” theory–that a loss on Syria would “weaken” Obama and make him less able to push reform–is also a potential source of paranoia, of course. What if it’s true and Obama wins on Syria? Then he’s “strengthened” …