Both Boehner and McConnell have tried reassuring voters-- who have turned massively against the Republican Party in poll after poll-- that the GOP will not shut down the government again in January. McConnell was clear in his interview with Robert Costa for the right-wing National Review that he knew Cruz's strategy would fail all along but that he didn't have the clout with his own caucus-- let alone in a dysfunctional, out-of-control House-- to stop it. He seems to think he does now. In an interview with The Hill, he said the Republicans had learned a painful political lesson and that they wouldn't be stampeded into these tactics again. "He said there’s no reason to go through the political wringer again in January, when the stopgap measure Congress passed late Wednesday is set to expire."
"One of my favorite old Kentucky sayings is there’s no education in the second kick of a mule. The first kick of a mule was when we shut the government down in the mid-1990s and the second kick was over the last 16 days," he said. "There is no education in the second kick of a mule. There will not be a government shutdown."I think we have fully now acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is," he added.…McConnell said the deal he inked with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Wednesday to open the government and raise the ceiling was the best that could be achieved given the GOP’s weak political position.He compared it to a punt in football, giving Republicans a chance to resume the battle from a better position next year."By the time I came in yesterday it was clear to me that it was up to me to get us out of the government shutdown and make sure we didn’t default," he said of his decision to take over the negotiations, after it became apparent the House could not pass legislation that could also pass the Senate.McConnell told his colleagues in a private meeting that they needed to escape a precarious political situation to push for spending and entitlement program reforms next year, when they will be in a position of greater strength."So I met with my members. I said, 'Look, I think we all know I have a weak hand here,'" McConnell said. "I’m on my own two-yard line. The offensive line is a little shaky, and what best I think we can do is get off a punt here to try to get into a better field position."…Some conservatives have criticized the deal harshly for failing to defund or make a major reform to ObamaCare, and 18 Republicans senators voted against it Wednesday.Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) praised McConnell Wednesday for risking a political backlash from his base when he faces a primary challenger in 2014."My hat goes off to Sen. McConnell. He’s in a very difficult situation politically," Schumer told reporters."His role in this could be a disaster for him politically," said Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "This hurts him in the primary."The right is even more emboldened to go after him," he added.But McConnell sees a political advantage. He think the deal cuts the bottom out of the message of his likely general-election opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, who has assailed the GOP leader as an obstructionist."This has been a bad 24 hours for her because her whole narrative, her whole campaign is to try to paint me as a guy who is kind of a guardian for gridlock here in Washington," McConnell said.A new Democratic poll conducted by Public Policy Polling for the liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change shows Grimes leading McConnell by two points, 45 percent to 43."This is the fourth time that I’ve stepped up to prevent catastrophic occurrence in our country," McConnell said, noting his role in deals to extend virtually all of the Bush-era tax cuts at the end of 2010, the Budget Control Act of 2011, and the fiscal-cliff deal of Jan. 1, 2013, which made most of the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Republicans have still not offered to pay back the $24 billion they wastedBrian Beutler, writing for Salon, rightly points out that "Republicans are now very, very invested in not triggering another government shutdown. Much more invested than they were last month, when party leaders got forced into shutting down the government against their better collective judgment." But when Beutler wrote "Republicans," was talking about the Party leadership and most Republicans, not all Republicans. Jim DeMint in no longer a senator but his blustering in the Wall Street Journal about not backing down yesterday, isn't lightly dismissed by Republican congressmen fearful of tea bagger primaries. The far right has an effective Inside/Outside strategy to push their agenda. And, of course, the inside man is Ted Cruz. He has pointedly-- and loudly-- differentiated himself from McConnell and Boehner by saying he's not willing to take the shut-down option off the table in his unending jihad against health insurance for poor people. And his radical followers in the House-- the Tortilla Coast Suicide Caucus members like Louie Gohmert and Steve Stockman-- can't wait for another shut-down and hostage crisis. It's the only time they get their names in the paper and feel important.And it's important to remember that although many of the 144 House Republicans who voted against McConnell's deal did so out of fear of being primaried-- like Jeff Denham (CA), Sean Duffy (WI), Randy Forbes (VA), Randy Hultgren (IL), John Mica (FL), Steve Palazzo (MS), Tom Petri (WI), Tom Reed (NY), and Greg Walden (OR)-- many, many more a true believers in a crazy sense of jihad even if it costs the nation an economic collapse or worse-- and even if it wrecks the Republican Party. Radical right Members-- especially in safe red seats-- don't care at all if they cause 30 or 40 of their colleagues in less safe seats to lose in next year's midterms. Every single Republican Member of the George House delegation, for example, voted against the deal. Extremists like Michele Bachmann (MN), Paul Broun (GA), Scott DesJarlais (the Tennessee doctor who was drugging and raping female patients), Blake Farenthold (TX), the gospel-singin'/self serving' Farmer Fincher (TN), John Fleming (LA), Virginia Foxx (NC), Trent Franks (AZ), Scott Garrett (NJ), Tim Huelskamp (KS), Jim Jordan (OH), Steve King (IA), Doug Lamborn (CO), James Lankford (OK), Mark Meadows (NC), Markwayne Mullin (OK), Mick Mulvaney (SC), Mike Pompeo (Koch Industries-KS), Trey Radel (FL), Mark Sanford (SC), Marlin Stutzman (IN), Tim Walberg (MI), Lynn Westmoreland (GA), Joe Wilson (SC) and, of course, Florida's dumbest Member Ted Yoho have learned exactly nothing from the catastrophe and are incapable of learning anything. And what's scary, these people are exactly like the people who vote for them, these people, the Ted Cruz crowd:
