.....like clear, clean rainwater into a dank, windowless basement.
Yes, THAT Redstate.
The cave is set to begin today with Mitch McConnell's visit to the White House.
Fox news is reporting that everyone is looking to Susan Collins as the way out of this because she is proposing a medical device tax repeal coupled with a relaxation of sequester cuts as a way to pay the Reid/Obama extortion ring off and get them off the hook for this deal.
So...my prediction...
This weekend will likely end the shutdown, McConnell/McCain/Graham/Collins will sell out completely on stopping Obamacare....Not only that, they will bring up the sequester spending which wasn't even on the table when we started this, and sell out the gains in deficit reductions we made last year.
AND...after all this...Obama will get more than he asked for to begin with, Republican's will own the blame for the shutdown giving the statist party bosses an excuse to cave on every budget negotiation they get into for the next 20 years, Obamacare will become a permanent entitlement...and the so called "Moderate", (read liberal) RMSP wing of the Republicrat Party will blame the base for the epic fail!
And if that's not enough, here are the replies to it:
milehighcon
ugh this sounds way too accurate. I wouldnt put anything past McConnell, the LIB from Maine, and Old McGrumpy and his posse of useful idiots.
mikeinweho
That sounds about right. It will get pushed through the House without conservative votes. Obama is clearly ready to breach the debt ceiling in a week and let the sh-t hit the fan in the belief that it will lead to an even better deal for him and Nancy with the gavel in 2014, which is probably true.
Then the "I told you so....." finger pointing begins.
Then, there's this:
"But when I checked into my hotel after eleven last night, there was a
backlog of weepy, crying emails from people ready to surrender. Why?"
Yes, because the polls moved against us. The poll numbers are not important for what it implies the GOP leaders should do, because the Republican leaders should shrug them off. THE POLL NUMBERS ARE IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY MEAN THE DEMOCRATS WONT EVER CAVE ON THIS. They can hold firm ... FOREVER. When President Obama says "No" he can make his "No" stick.
Conservative takeaways from WSJ poll:
http://www.conservativeintel.c...
How about the strategy of shutting down the government to defund Obamacare? It gets 23 percent support.
Obamacare support swing in +8 direction.
Obama’s net fav/unfav: +3 Swing
Generic Ballot: Republicans -4, Democrats +1.
The Democrats’ net fav/unfav: -3 Swing
The Republican Party’s net fav/unfav: -13 Swing
And here is where conservative movement leaders need to inject honesty and humility here. The defund strategy only leads to victory if the Democrats blink. But they arent and they wont. Sticking it out will not lead to victory, just a long,messy, defeat rather than a shorter wishy-washy lets-get-something-out-of-this compromise.
The hope to defund or even delay Obamacare depended on this premise: "Obamacare is so unpopular, we can use the shutdown to make them move." Well, it didnt happen. Rather, the shutdown is so unpopular, it is making us go backwards on Obamacare with the people. What is happening is that the shutdown is being blamed on the Tea Party, and the Democrats are rallying to the President, boosting him just a month after his Syria fiasco and deflating and dividing the Republicans.
Meanwhile, the lack of Republican unity and the fact that many on capitol hill are not and never were believers in this strategy makes the impossibility of moving Democrats a self-fulfilling prophecy. Too many Republicans were itching to blink anyway. What of the argument that a majority in the House would vote for a clean CR? Why would Reid move on the 'partial funding' if he has cover with the polls?
The bottom-line - Erick says: "The GOP should have this fight and make this case. It is sellable. The only problem is the GOP leadership does not want to sell it. They’d rather surrender and shift blame to conservatives."
I wrote an article agreeing with the Erickson strategy to focus on the CR. And Obamacare is the fight that matters. But fighting the good fight doesnt take us to victory. While the leadership doesnt want to sell fighting Obamacare here and now, dont call the leadership sellouts if they decide to fight Obamacare in 2014 via other means and the 2014 election itself. They don't see a path to victory and consevatives cant claim there is one - because it isn't there. We are past that point of seeing if we can get Republican unity and Democrat division on that point - we don't have it.
The only logical conclusion is this: To change Democrats' minds WE NEED TO DEFEAT DEMOCRATS IN ELECTIONS. There is a Governor's race in NJ and VA. We need to win those. We need to win 6+ net Senate races in 2014.
I would add that more important than having the best strategy is being unified in the strategy we have, because unity is our strength. It's time for us to stop being divisive with other Republicans. Boehner was right about one thing - "This is not a d*mned game."
As for the medical device tax, it SHOULD be repealed. If that's the small consolation prize to win, get it and move on to making the case on Obamacare as it rolls out. The one good thing here is the Democrats own ACA 100%. Let them choke on it in 2014.