Last Call For The Young GOP Fanatics' Club

Meet the "brains" behind the GOP's disastrous shutdown/defunding plan, who, as with all Republican "strategists", will only fail upwards:  Heritage Foundation head Michael Needham.

'I really believe we are in a great position right now," says Michael Needham, the 31-year-old president of Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the nation's largest conservative think tank. By "we" he means the Republican Party and the conservative movement; their "great position" refers to the potential to win the political battle over the government shutdown. 

Though Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is the public face of the high-risk strategy to "defund" ObamaCare, the masterminds behind it are a new generation of young conservatives, chief among them Mr. Needham. From a tactical view, the strategy has been deployed with precision. In August, only Mr. Cruz and a band of renegade tea-party Republicans in the House favored this approach, and the media collectively scoffed. But by September, House Republicans couldn't pass a budget without attaching the defunding rider that has grounded much of government. 

"We rallied the conservative grass roots across the country," Mr. Needham says, and ran ads in more than 100 districts on the health law. It worked. During the August recess, these activists demanded that their members of Congress stop ObamaCare. 

To most observers, who think the GOP is losing this fight, Mr. Needham's optimism that Republicans will carry the day may seem astonishing. But Mr. Needham says the second-guessers are wrong.

Of course he says that.  In a sense he's partially right, the GOP will most likely keep the House in 2014 because America (and our "liberal" media) will conveniently forget all this nonsense come this time next year. So many folks will happily vote for the same Congresscritter who hung them out to dry in 2013, or at least 50% plus one will.

These young guns are convinced they can succeed where their elders failed simply by being willing to destroy the country in order to "win".

Mr. Needham thinks, by the way, that the stalemate may drag on well beyond Oct. 17, the day the U.S. Treasury may reach the federal borrowing limit. He has little problem with the latest strategy to pass a temporary debt-ceiling extension, viewing the debt-default debate as a distraction from the battle over the future of ObamaCare funding. 

President Obama is the one in an "untenable position," Mr. Needham says. It is "totally unfair to say, 'We're going to give a delay of the employer mandate, but we will not give that same delay to the individual mandate, and we're going to exempt members of Congress.' A united conservative party making the case, day in and day out, about the fundamental unfairness of the way the president is implementing this law is a winning argument," he says. And it "inspires people and gets them on our side."

So yes, the tactical genius here believes that by destroying America's credit, jacking up interest rates and costing the country possibly millions of jobs that it will "inspire people and get them on his side."  And yet, he'll continue to give the GOP advice, and the "moderate" GOP will listen to and go along with every word of it, just like they are now.

The Conserva-Schism Is Not The "End Of The GOP"

I'm with Steve M. on this one:  the only people who believe that this shutdown debacle is the "end of the GOP" and the beginning of a libertarian-ish third party in this country are libertarians who don't seem to understand that the volcanic rancor various factions of the GOP have for a black Democrat in the White House (or any Democrat, but especially that one) will always exceed their own differences.  They are forever united by hatred, and always will be, as Steve points out:

Trust me, these folks are going to work this out. First of all, crazy-base disappointment with the GOP is not exactly new. Crazy-base voters thought John McCain was a pathetic RINO. Did they bolt for a third party? No. They felt the same way in 2012 about Mitt Romney. Did they bolt then? No. They never bolt, because they hate liberals, Democrats, and the Democratic voter base as they perceive it (i.e., non-white moochers) far more than they hate one another.

And they've been disappointed for years anyway -- abortion is still legal, government is still (in their eyes) big and socialist, America is still (in their eyes) perpetually under assault by gays, Christian-bashers, gun-grabbers, etc., etc.

And unlike Democrats in 2010, the notion of Republicans sitting at home in fits of pique while the other party gets elected will motivate the GOP to go to the polls in 2014, mainly because of that "united by hatred" thing.  The only question is whether or not there will be enough Democrats who turn out to counter them.  That's really the only question in voting politics these days.  When Democrats show up, they win.  When they don't, America hands the keys back to the drunk drivers in the GOP.

Look at the last 20 years.  The 95-96 shutdown cost Newt Gingrich his speakership and then impeached Clinton over a blowjob, but the GOP held on to the House for another decade and got the White House back four years later.  Show me the part where the shutdown back then was a loss for the GOP, because when the smoke cleared from the 2000 elections, America had given them total control of the country, and then they brought around two ridiculous wars and a financial catastrophe, and ten years after Bush was appointed POTUS by the Supremes, we sat on our asses and gave the GOP not only the House but a majority of state governments to boot.

Where's the point where the GOP is "losing" here?  Suddenly, NOW is the end of the GOP?

Now if we throw the GOP out of the House in 2014, that will be the start of something, but will we do that given all this horrific history of GOP "rule"?

Since we keep putting ourselves back into this situation, I'm going to say "probably not."

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

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• Missouri Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon has suspended execution by lethal injection in the state due to the German manufacturer of the drug refusing to release it for that purpose.
• More and more Syrian rebel groups are leaving the US-backed Free Syrian Army, putting the ability of a moderate group to counter hard-line Islamist rebels at risk.
• House Republicans are gathering today for a meeting to hammer out terms of a deal to re-open the government and raise the debt ceiling, but it will be a tough sell to Tea Party faithful.
• After losing multiple battles in lower courts, TV networks are going to the US Supreme Court in order to block online startup Aereo from broadcasting their shows over the internet.