Now that House Republicans have passed legislation offering to postpone a government shutdown until December 15 in exchange for defunding Obamacare, the ball is in the Senate's court, where Republicans must decide whether to (a) move forward with the legislative process and let the Senate send a bill back to the House that doesn't defund Obamacare or to (b) block the legislative process, shutting down the federal government instead of passing a spending bill that doesn't defund Obamacare. (There is no third option, because Senate Democrats aren't going to accept the House's defund demand and everybody knows it.)
Most Republican Senators, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, are taking the first option, but a small group of right-wingers—including, at this point, Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, and David Vitter—want to shut everything down. The problem for Republicans is that while the "shut everything down" position is wildly unpopular with the public at large, it's practically a litmus test for the most rabid elements of the GOP base.
It's a real dilemma for Republicans, and now Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has weighed in on what he thinks they should do, writing in a diary posted at Red State:
The House has passed a bipartisan bill to accomplish two goals that are in line with the will of the American people: (a) end the ObamaCare train wreck by defunding it and (b) keep the government open and running. Now it’s up to the Senate to do the same. [...] House Republicans produced and passed legislation to keep the government running. They’ve done the job Americans wanted. Now it’s up to the Democrat-run Senate. Now the #SenateMustAct.
So ... instead of choosing sides in the battle between Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz (plus the GOP's base), Reince Priebus has boldly declared that his solution would be for Democrats to simply agree to defund Obamacare. In other words, he won't take sides, because even the chairman of the Republican National Committee realizes there's no good way for Republicans to win on this.
But on the upside, at least he gets to tweet a new hashtag.