Maddow: Obama's stance on debt ceiling shows 'evolution' in strategy

Rachel Maddow said on her Friday night show that Obama's first term taught the president some tough lessons on partisanship and pushing his agenda.

The book Do Not Ask What Good We Do, by Robert Draper, and a new PBS documentary about the GOP's plans to obstruct Obama's agenda, illustrate just how determined the party has been to stop the new president from carrying out his agenda. "They decided that they needed to begin to fight Obama on everything," the documentary says.

Then Maddow showed recent clips of Obama stating, without hedging, that he would not compromise or even negotiate on the debt ceiling.

"This evolution in the president's strategy for dealing with Republicans and recognizing their strategy against him and knowing what he can and cannot expect to get out of them. On the last business day of his first term, it paid off today," as they offered a three-month extension on the debt ceiling, which Maddow called a "cave" on the part of the GOP.

"They're still trying to say they're only going to cave for three months. and then they're going to be back to demanding negotiations again, but essentially it is over," she argued, claiming that they would be blamed for stock market volatility if they tried to take on the issue full force again.

"Today they are saying, three months we're going to be back here, but nobody believes them."

Then Maddow discussed Obama's decision to turn his campaign into a "permanent campaign organization," Organizing for Action, which he wants to use to push his agenda in his second term. Its agenda, they say, includes gun control, immigration, and climate change -- each one of which is a "huge political lift" on its own.

She said that nothing like this has ever happened before.

About 4,000 volunteers will meet this weekend in Washington, D.C., to discuss how they can organize for "maximum political effect."

Watch the video, via MSNBC, below.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy