Hill staffer on the House side emails that a proposal is floating for a six-week clean debt ceiling increase, shutdown will continue
— @JGreenDC
So remind me why the GOP went with this shutdown? So business groups could organize to fight the tea party? OK, then. Mission accomplished.
— @DemFromCT
Tim Alberta:
House Republicans remain committed to forcing negotiations with President Obama and Senate Democrats over a range of long-term fiscal issues, including the debt-ceiling and budget deficit. But they also are beginning to accept that for such talks to take place, they must first approve a short-term debt limit increase.
On Wednesday, Republicans sounded prepared to do precisely that.
Back from the brink? They've lost on Obamacare.
NY Times:
House Republicans, facing the ninth day of a government shutdown, appeared increasingly isolated on Wednesday from even their strongest backers, with business groups demanding the immediate reopening of the government and benefactors such as Koch Industries publicly distancing themselves from the shutdown fight.
At this point pollsters should be polling "Defund the GOP" v. "Defund Obamacare."
— @LOLGOP
Charles P. Pierce:
With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives engaged in a tense, government-shuttering budgetary standoff against a Democratic president and Senate, the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by 28% of Americans, down from 38% in September. This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992...More than six in 10 Americans (62%) now view the GOP unfavorably, a record high. By comparison, nearly half of Americans (49%) view the Democratic Party unfavorably. Roughly one in four Americans see both parties unfavorably.
And, as far as the people who are driving the Reign Of The Morons are concerned, these numbers mean precisely dick.
They will look at the poll and see themselves as battling evermore valiantly against even more overwhelming odds. They will see themselves beset on all sides by liberals, and RINO's, and crooked pollsters. They will go back to their carefully barbered congressional districts -- Nice work today, Weigel, by the way -- and see these numbers almost completely reversed there, so what are they to do but keep on keepin' on doing their people's business against the powerful dark forces arrayed against them all. Most of the elite courtier press likely will ignore them, or attribute them to a disgust by "the American people" toward the "dysfunction" in Washington, without ever naming the obvious source thereof.
Always debt-limit posturing, foot-dragging, must-give-me-a-cookie deal-making? Yes. But not this brazen, bug-eyed cocking of the pistol. 3/3
— @JohnJHarwood
More politics and policy below the fold.
Gail Collins:
Good news: The people who track killer asteroids for NASA are still on the case, despite the government shutdown
Bad news: A lot of the people who inspect food aren’t. The folks from the Department of Agriculture who check meatpacking plants are still working. But the guys at the Food and Drug Administration who make routine appearances at, say, the nut-shelling factory to look for vermin, are on furlough. Not to mention a lot of the people who check shipments of seafood or vegetables from outside the country.
AtlanticWire:
During the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Republicans were pretty unpopular. After eight years of George W. Bush, same. But never in the history of Gallup polling has the party been more unpopular than it is right now.
A crucial caveat: that history only goes back to 1992, so it doesn't include, for example, the post-Watergate era. But still, over the past 21 years the Republican Party has never been viewed less favorably by Americans than it is right now.
NY Times on politics as usual:
Mr. Rubio is not the only Republican using the shutdown to position himself for a presidential candidacy. These Republicans’ actions, as the crisis drags on, offer an early glimpse of the contours of the 2016 primary: some in the emerging field are desperate to avoid being seen as to the left of Mr. Cruz and his fervent Tea Party supporters, while others are charting a different course.
“Cruz is trying to start a wave of Salem witch trials in the G.O.P. on the shutdown and Obamacare, and that fear is impacting some people’s calculations on 2016,” said the Republican strategist Mike Murphy.
The budget crisis, of course, is not only dominating the national news cycles. It is also being carefully watched by those in the Republican Party who will help determine the next nominee.
For Mr. Rubio, who has fallen out of favor with the party’s base after supporting efforts to overhaul immigration, the need to re-establish conservative credentials is especially urgent.
Greg Sargent:
The rub is that if Republicans do drag the process out, that second cloture vote could end up occurring significantly closer to next week’s debt ceiling deadline of October 17th, meaning the pressure on moderate Senate Republicans to approve it will be significantly more intense than, say, this week. In other words, delaying tactics could make it more likely that moderate Republicans in the Senate vote to break the GOP filibuster.
States start to feel shutdown's pinch as SNAP, WIC programs, rape crisis centers run out of money --
http://t.co/...
— @PostReid
Mark Z. Barabak:
The campaign around Proposition 187 was a bruising one, starkly dividing the state. The measure split Californians by age, education level and religious affiliation, according to exit poll interviews, as well as partisan lines. Republicans voted more than 3-to-1 in favor, Democrats 2-to-1 against. Whites were strongly supportive. Latinos were overwhelming opposed.
It was, in retrospect, a pivot point, an election that not only changed California but helped reshape politics nationwide. Proposition 187 was largely voided in the courts, but not before energizing the burgeoning ranks of Latino voters and badly damaging the image of the Republican Party, throughout California and across the country.
The practical results can be seen here in Sacramento, where Latinos have nearly doubled their numbers in the state Legislature