If you haven't seen enough to know that the Republicans are loosing this badly, check out Erick Erickson, creator of Redstate.com, a leading Conservative website:
Yes, I Think This Means the GOP is Winning
His main point is, basically, if you look at the most GOP friendly polling result (CNN), the GOP is only "slightly" loosing. And this constitutes winning. It's a fun read, and if you have the time and stomach for it, take a look at the comments.
This might not make any sense to you, but it's actually a pretty big step towards reality for conservatives. A little context:
Erick son of Erick, has been beating the Defund-Obamacare strategy since early this summer.
Before the shutdown, he argued that public opinion was behind the strategy. Generally he would point to Obamacare's approval rating being upside-down. Here's one example.
Shortly after the shutdown, he started claiming the polls were moving in the GOP's direction. Like many conservatives, he has the annoying habit of making claims about public opinion without bothering to include links to polling results, or to even reference a specific poll.
And now, this morning, he has apparently evolved to "we're loosing, but only by a little, and that means we're winning." He actually referenced a poll, and, of course, cherry picked the CNN poll - the most favorable showing for the GOP. And he cherry picked the most favorable question: who's at fault for the shutdown. He doesn't even mention the numbers, only a tweet from CNN. Because numbers are hard. And of course there isn't a link to the actually polling report.
Conservatives might one day acknowledge reality. Or they might just start "Unskewing" the polls all over again. But for know, apparently, loosing is winning if it's only by a little bit. So they're not actually ignoring last year's election results - it's that Romney actually won because he only lost by a little bit. Did you know that Republicans get a handicap? How much do Democrats have to win by to win?
I actually have some empathy for conservative readers. They constantly fed a "don't worry, we're winning" line, all the way up to the very end, and then when they loose, and they're left wondering what the hell happened. It shouldn't be surprising that they resort to conspiracy theories to rationalize everything. Acknowledging reality would require stepping outside the bubble.
So my question is: does Erickson actually believe this shit, or, is he just scamming his loyal readers?