Winning

The Democrats are "poised and confident" because they believe they are going to "win" the public opinion fight over the sequester.

Democrats enjoy a massive public relations advantage over the GOP. Voters are prepared to blame Republicans. The Democrats have an unusually steady message. Republicans are lurching from message to message as they try futilely to blame Obama for sequestration’s very existence, while contending that its consequences won’t be so dire (except when they contend it will hollow out the military) and to argue just as futilely that Obama’s revenue demand is an act of duplicity.

Unfortunately this is very different from "winning" the policy fight.  In terms of their party's (nominal, anyway) policy goals, we're likely to see the Democrats lose a lot.  Whatever deal is eventually reached will undoubtedly contain lots and lots of horrifying cuts to many necessary social services that people rely on.  But because the Democrats have maneuvered things in such a way that Republicans will take most of the "blame" for these cuts (at least initially) then this constitutes a big win for team D.

Way to go, guys.