[Steko]

I understand and am sympathetic to Clinton but in the eyes of the public he lost and looked silly.

There's two battles progressives (and I am one) can fight here and getting sidetracked into the fight over framing this as a hike or not is not a battle they are going to win. OTOH while there was bipartisan support for letting the payroll tax holiday expire, Obama had proposed extending it for another year and bargained it away to Republicans. So if the GOP wants to call it a hike let them and remind everyone that they wanted this hike more than the Democrats did. That's a battle that's far more winnable.