WH Stokes Fear, CHRISTMAS IN THE BALANCE!

With the debate heavily focused on comparisons of the spending cuts in the Harry Reid and John Boehner proposals, the fact that Boehner’s approach would put us all through another bruising debt ceiling debate in six months has not received the attention Democrats had hoped for.

So the White House is circulating a new set of talking points to outside allies and surrogates, instructing them on a new way to make this case: If Boehner has his way, the debt ceiling debate will steal Christmas.

Here are the key bits from the talking points, which were sent over by a source:

• Today, the House will vote on Speaker Boehner’s proposal, but that vote does nothing to move the country closer to a solution.

• To be clear: This bill is dead on arrival in the Senate and there is zero chance this makes it to the President’s desk...

• Rather than compromising for the sake of the country, the House GOP continues to play politics with the full faith and credit of the United States -- even saying that their strategy is to tell the country to “take it or leave it” and blame the President for default.

• Under the Boehner bill, we will be right back into this debate during the holiday season, which is the most important time in the year for our economy.

On MSNBC this morning, top Obama adviser David Plouffe made a similar claim, pointing out that the Boehner plan would ensure that “this whole debt ceiling spectacle” will be “repeated again a few montsh from now over the holidays.”

“The debt ceiling debate would ruin Christmas,” Plouffe said. He was apparently ad-libbing the line, but now it’s found its way into the White House’s official talking points.

Also note the talking point that claims the GOP strategy for getting Boehner’s plan passed is to tell Obama to ”take it or leave it” and risk default. That’s a reference to this from Mike Allen’s Playbook:

Republican leaders are very prepared to say to the President: “Take it or leave it” -- and stick him with default. So the global financial system may ride on the size of the fig leaf.

Of course, the fact that the Boehner plan would force another fight over the debt ceiling is one of the things that recommends it to Republicans: They want him to hike the debt ceiling again just as the reelection campaign is heating up. But by pointing out that this could spark another massive political battle over the holidays — the most important time of the year for our economy — the White House is hoping to dramatize the unpleasantness of this prospect in a way that might grab more media and public attention.