Key GOP figures on Wednesday sent their clearest signals that they are abandoning their bid to immediately stop the federal health-care law — the issue that forced the government to shut down — and are scrambling for a fallback strategy.
Petard, meet pavement.
Republican Party leaders, activists and donors now widely acknowledge that the effort to kill President Obama’s signature initiative by hitting the brakes on the government itself has been a failure.
Paging Erick Erickson.
The push to defund the legislation has cost Republicans politically. A Gallup poll released Wednesday found that only 28 percent of Americans view the Republican Party favorably — down 10 percentage points since September, and the lowest number for either party since Gallup began asking the question in 1992.
But, it was sooo working before the Republicans lost focus.
Some Republicans are aiming harsh recriminations toward those who had vigorously advocated linking the funding needed to keep the government operating to the drive to stop the health-care law.
And some Republicans have a Wile E. Coyote look on their face.
“I think it was very possible for us to delay the implementation of Obamacare for a year until Cruz came along and crashed and burned,” anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said.
And I think it is possible that Grover Norquist is every bit as much to blame for this mess as Ted Cruz.
Some of the most influential players in the conservative movement also were taking pains Wednesday to maintain their distance from the failed shutdown strategy, while reaffirming their opposition to Obamacare.
Who me? I didn’t support this catastrophe. Don’t you point your finger at me, I opposed ObamaCare before Obama was even born in Nairobi.
The chief lobbyist for Koch Industries sent a letter to Capitol Hill offices saying the company’s owners — heavyweight conservative donors Charles and David Koch — have never publicly supported the defund strategy, despite assertions by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and other Democrats to the contrary.
We didn’t fund the chicken that laid this egg.
Now that plan is in tatters, and party and movement leaders are trying to salvage something from what is widely acknowledged to be a politically disastrous few weeks. Instead, many strategists say, the stumbling rollout of the law has been overshadowed by the shutdown and a perception that Republicans have overreached.
“There is a strong sense of a missed opportunity,” Norquist said.
Idiots.
Maybe they should have consulted with the Skewed Polls guy. Or Romney’s polling consultants. Oh wait, were they the same people?
Recently the skewed polls guy declared that Obama isn’t a secret Muslim or any kind of Muslim because he is in fact gay.
This is amazing. People have been arguing for two years whether it’s legal for the president to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling if Congress does not act.
But I’ve never seen anyone point out the simple fact (and it never occurred to me either) that Congress is bound by the 14th Amendment as well.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/republicans-are-awfully-close-to-violating-the-constitution-
20131008
Except me, earlier today.
Sorry, I missed that.
The chief lobbyist for Koch Industries sent a letter to Capitol Hill offices saying the company’s owners — heavyweight conservative donors Charles and David Koch — have never publicly supported the defund strategy, …
Of course Charlie & Dave were never going to say anything publicly but they certainly supported it in every other way.
This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to understand where the Koch brothers are coming from and what they are trying to do to this country:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I8ap8y16RY#t=11
very impressive woman, impressive that she is doing this
She seems to know all about the inside dirt. More power to her!
They’re still terrorists. All of them deserve life in Gitmo.
Actually let’s just hand them over to Cuba. The hell with Gitmo. And thrown in war criminals like Cheney, Bush and Rummy for that matter.
If only!!!
AG
What has Cuba ever done to deserve that: have the Spanish blown up the Maine or something. Strip and pillory them on the DC Mall! Cuba is not a colony in abeyance. That’s somthing the USA can’t get through it’s thick skull. What did Cuba ever do to the USA? Defy it, maybe, in the form of Castro’s revolution? Like Iran: Battista and the King of Kings. I’m not breaking a lance for either Castro or the Ayatollahs. But I am calling bull on the USA for its oppressive intolerance and hypocrisy. Return Guantanamo to Cuba. Oh I forgot, Battista gave the USA a lease in perpetuity. Does anyone have any idea how anything so galling could come to pass? P.S. Dick Cheney was feted in NYC on October 8 and the gang guffawed at jokes about waterboarding! Thank you Mr. Obama.
Well Cuba did allow the Soviet Union to base IRBM’s there aimed at the USA. To be fair, I acknowledge that Khrushchev did that in retaliation for the USA basing IRBM’s in Turkey aimed at Russia. After Kennedy “faced down” Khrushchev, BOTH countries removed their missiles so the crisis was not so one sided. Good to remember as we ponder “The Missiles of October”.
Conservative Movement, meet Dustbin of History. Dustbin, Conservative Movement. I’m sure you two are really gonna hit it off!
Not yet. Every time – every time – over the last decade that public, voter, judicial, or legislative repudiation has told these people that they’ve overreached and need to pull back, their response after several minutes of deep self-reflection has been to double down. Again. I think we’re up to about two to the twentieth power at this point. There is zero reason to think plenty of Teahadists won’t say the reason it failed was RINO betrayal and insufficient resolve, and try to go for 21.
It can only end one of two ways. Either the Republican money people and/or corporate start calling them out for the fringe, delusional zealots they are, or we’re going to see subgroups taking up arms to retake “their” country. They’re that marinated in their paranoia and hate, and as we’ve seen of late, they have zero compunction about inflicting misery on others in the name of their “FREEEEEEDDDUUUMMM.”
Bright side: Ted Cruz might have marginalized himself right out of a position of influence in polite Beltway circles, though like Palin he’ll still be able to collect Wingnut Welfare for life after his 15 mins are up. And we’re still stuck with him in the Senate til 2018.
Down side: Someone will replace him.
they are nowhere near finished – and they won’t be until the GOP members fear a general election more than a primary. The districts are so gerrymandered that in fact far more fear a primary than a general election. This is less true in the Senate – which accounts for the difference in behavior.
Of course we will be stuck with nutty conservatives in office for a long time to come – Oklahoma ain’t turning blue soon, for example. But I do think their historical trajectory is pretty much downhill from here. Not conservatives per se, but the Southern Strategy-based Conservative Movement of the last 40 years or so.
There is something missing to your dichotomy too. Maybe the big money will pull out, maybe they’ll devolve into fringe militia groups. But neither of those things are gonna matter too much if/when they’re overwhelmed by the much-touted, but very real, demographic change of the next two decades. 2012 was just an amuse-bouche of what’s coming.
There just ain’t going to be enough hardcore wingers left a few years from now for them to be anything more than a minor annoyance in our politics, like high water rates or petty corruption.
By your thesis, someone crazier will replace him.
“The chief lobbyist for Koch Industries sent a letter to Capitol Hill offices saying the company’s owners — heavyweight conservative donors Charles and David Koch — have never publicly supported the defund strategy”
That’s as big a lie as everything else they come out with. well, no, sorry. The operative word here is “publicly”. The outfit that dreamed up this ingenious stratagem, Heritage Action, is a Koch fronts. Their donor list is secret however. — However, according to a chance discovery by the Center for Responsive Politics, we do know that ONE of their donors in 2012 ($271,000) was something called Free Enterprise America. — In 2011, Free Enterprise America received donations from:
60 Plus Assn c4 $840,000
American Commitment c4 $103,000
Concerned Women for America c4 $30,000
Heritage Action for America c4 $271,000
National Fedn of Independent Business c6 $500,000
Americans for Tax Reform c4 $813,000
National Assn of Manufacturers c6 $2,500,000
All but the last two are Koch fronts. (Americans for Tax Reform is Norquist and Nat asoc Manufactureres is a well known RW org that has been opposed to the ACA from the start.)
See paragraph 6 here:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/12/center-to-protect-patient-rights-ga.html
and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/nfib-koch-brothers_n_3943225.html
I said elsewhere a few days ago that when it came to defaulting on the debt that the rich weren’t going to pay for the Tea Party rally hats if their shenanigans cost them a few trillion dollars. I suggested that the Kochs might want to start bringing their food tasters to other oligarchs’ dinner parties. Apparently, the first food taster has died.
I think you’re right, Bob.
By the way, I only just noticed this — according to Open Secrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics), in 2011 Heritage Action (a Koch front) gave Freedom Works (another Koch front) $271,000, and in that same year, Freedom Works gave Heritage Action $271,000. Isn’t that just special?
oh my!
Me, on July 31st: Sen. Ted Cruz Driving the Crazy Train.
“I would not be in the United States Senate were it not for Senator Jim DeMint.” — Ted Cruz
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/the-long-arm-and-hidden-hand-of-jim-demint-20131001
Another thing to blame DeMint for.
Wonder if Cruz will even run for reelection to his Senate seat in 2018, after he loses in 2016.
Funny how they equate the roll-out of one website with the law itself, which has been rolling out gradually over the last 3 years. Just the provision that makes any provider who accepts Medicare have to digitize their records alone makes this law worthwhile. Been in an ICU lately? It’s a gazillion times better now that everything is digital.
Heard from someone yesterday that it took her 15 minutes over the phone to sign up and she learned her coverage starts right away in California. She doesn’t have to wait until January 1st. The States are doing a far better job of making coverage available than the Federal website. The media has overblown the early glitches.
Actually, the last time I saw my Lung Doctor he was cursing the Medicare form and asking his nurse for help. He told me he was changing my diagnosis from COPD to Asthma because the form required him to. I wonder what the repercussions at BCBS are? Change my diagnosis because it’s not on the form? Will my medication no longer be covered? It DOES seem like some bureaucrat in Washington is getting between me and my doctor.
Until the legislation is through the Congress and the signature of Barack Obama is dry on the appropriations bills for the entire fiscal year and the taking away of the power to create a debt ceiling crisis ever again, there will be no celebration for me.
And until the election shows a backlash to the federal, state, and local overreach that has gone on for the past 12 years, there will be no schadenfreude for me.
You are getting ahead of events.
While I agree with your reluctance to celebrate, can we can at least agree that the likelihood of catastrophe is starting to drop?
Ian Reifowitz sorta expresses the anxiety:
I sort of know this in a way, but have a hard time grasping that many of them don’t seem to know what the debt ceiling is – Rand Paul and Ted Yoho for example. Unless they are lying (possible) they think seem to think it’s about balancing the budget. ?????
I believe it’s true. These guys aren’t Tea Party panderers, they’re Tea Party true believers with all the misconceptions the rank-and-file Tea Partiers have.
WOW! Just wow!
I know this is just the meme the RWNJ are pushing, but still..hack will be hacks
Ari Fleischer doesn’t tweet for free. I wonder who’s paying him for this bullshit.
Fleisher knows his audience. I believe it was twisted right before his apperance on Hannity on Fox (or sometime after).
Just a hint of Obama the other/terrorist sympathizer and just enough of a hint of a racist dog whistle for the base dogs.
Also too, its funny that GOP hacks don’t realize they are also equating Boehner to the Mullahs idjits or they just don’t care that the flip dides means Mullahs/Extremist = Boehner/Teabaggers
And you saw what people Tweeted right back at punk-ass Ari, right? Pictures of C- Augustus playing kissy-kissy with the terrorist supporting Saudi king
Unlike the Republicans, the Iranians released their hostages 30 years ago.
LOL, ’cause you know, there was all that negotiating with Bin Laden before…well, you know.
Of course, no one in the media is smart enough to ask a Republican this question: if you shut down the government to defund ACA, and now you’re giving up, what exactly what the WHOLE FUCKING POINT of causing a shitload of misery for a lot of people?
Either they’re fucking stupid, or this was some kind of experiment to see how much of that 27% backwash that supports the GOP no matter what would get pissed off by their antics. Judging by the fact that only 5% of people approve of Congress these days, I have to say both might be correct.
They have managed to dive beneath 27%. A first, I believe.
listen to Erickson about political strategy. Consider this from October 24th, 2012
The title of this article: “Obama’s hubris will be his undoing”
Of course the hubris then, as of now, is all in Erickson’s head.
Irony. Really deep irony.
With enemies like him you really don’t need friends.
http://www.redstate.com/2012/10/24/obamas-hubris-will-be-his-undoing/
Well, Obama did lose in North Carolina, but I guarantee you that it was not because of winding down his ground game.
But, yes, Erickson always has been an overpaid, overrated windbag.
He’s a grifter of minor talent, that’s all. As overrated as Marco Rubio.
a grifter of minor talent – very nice phrase
Kind of you to say.
“I’m being told by several sources that Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are plotting to give up trying to either defund or delay Obamacare.”
http://www.redstate.com/2013/10/10/house-gop-preparing-to-give-up/
Comment over at Redstate
Yep I would say that about sums it up
Wow. I have to say this has been a disaster from start to finish. We had a chance early on to shape the law and make it better. Instead, Party leaders said, “No, we’re going to obstruct the process and say no to everything.” So the law passed with zero input from Republicans. Shockingly, the Supreme Court upheld it. All efforts at delaying or defunding it have failed. And now, to ice this shitcake, we’re talking about splitting the Party in two? What’s gone horribly wrong with this picture? Welcome to the wilderness, my friends. I have a feeling we’re going be wandering here for long, long time.
I read somewhere that actually the ACA bill included a high number of Republican ideas, close to 200 of ’em. So it’s not true that there was zero input from Republicans. My God, the whole bill is a Republican idea.
I think the RedState commenter can be forgiven for not knowing (or forgetting?) that the ACA is full of Republican ideas. The GOP’s opposition was a hell of a lot louder than its input.
Which is a lie, because putting aside the fact that the ACA is a Republican idea in and of itself, they put plenty of amendments in there along the way (including Grassley’s troll amendment about Congress and their staffers).
What “ideas” do they have that aren’t included anyway? “Buying across state lines and tort reform.” That’s it.
Rep. Lankford, one of the 18 GOP leaders who will be meeting with the President this afternoon, just admitted that “there’s five different proposals floating around” among GOP House members which could act as the hostage demand in exchange for the House agreeing to lift the debt ceiling. He still reserved the right of the House to keep the government closed, though.
This is ridiculous. You can’t conduct negotiations under the guns of closure and default when you don’t have anything close to a unified position. No one can guarantee Obama that the House can deliver the votes for ANY agreement. If these highly deluded politicians can’t concede that, it looks like they’ll be forced to concede that by their sugar daddies. My favorite glass of schaudenfreude will be brought to me by the thought of Obama and the GOP sugar daddies telling these berserk Representatives the exact same thing. That’ll sting.
What was it that caused the dam to burst yesterday afternoon? It appears that it was all the preposterous Congressmembers (even multiple Senators!) who publicly parsed the definition of default and said that not paying the Nation’s bills wouldn’t be that bad. That’s super-duper-deluxe crazy talk. Even the MSM sounded horrified by all the Super Stupid. Kind of hard to pretend “both sides do it” after the last two days, right?
What a stinking mess of a Party.
That, the Gallup polling and, last but certainly not least, the spike in short-term T-bills.
Interest Rate On Short-Term Treasury Bills Spike
Yes, these additional factors are helping move the House. I believe there was a cause-and-effect, though: insane statements this week by Congressional Republicans helped create the T-bill spike. May have had something to do with their disastrous polling as well.
OT
Remember that young student from the HBCU that was at the center of the big North Carolina voter suppression case…he was running for city council and the GOP man tried to have him kicked off the ballot because him being a student didn’t qualify as residency.
Last we checked in…he had won his case at the State Board of Elections in North Carolina, so the next stop was the election..
HE WON the City Council Seat!!!
Here’s the Maddow segment with the update on him.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/vp/53240479#53240501
Kinda says it all: