So, it's over. They saw the light, the Senate did what the Senate does and produced something safe, bipartisan and fundamentally vanilla flavored that purchased a few months of peace. Or like two months of peace, anyway. We could be right back here very quickly- but I doubt it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already said he's not shutting down the government over Obamacare again. Speaker of the House John Boehner is probably worried about keeping his job- and he should be as he might have to rely on Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Minority to get anything done.
My original point still stands- why shut down the government over Obamacare? They knew it was never getting through the Senate and they knew that even if, by some crazy happenstance it did so that the President wasn't going to sign it. It was about as complete a non-starter as you can imagine- yet they did it anyway. To stand with the American people for Conservative principles or blah blah blah... but you know, there's a thing about principles: they don't matter a damn if you don't win elections.
And, moreover- if, as it seems to be that the rollout of Obamacare has been a complete and total nightmare, then why oh why would you want to distract from that? That's all on the Democrats and the President. Pull out your deck chairs, pour yourselves a nice frosty beverage and watch it happen. Resist the urge to tell the voters 'we told you so.' Come up with a detailed, specific plan about what you would do to fix the problem. Stop saying 'repeal and replace' and focus on the 'replace' part and you might, just maybe, get clear of this trainwreck and accomplish something next year. Ultimately, this shutdown was the wrong play for the GOPers. If the opposing party is launching a trainwreck, don't, for heaven's sake stand in their way.
Going forward- although I don't have a lot of reasons to hope on this score- one hopes that the spirit of sensible compromise will prevail. The message should be sent to all the GOPers across the board: big change means winning elections. If they're smart (and I think this debacle proves that they are nowhere near as smart as they should be) they'll get as much as they can out of a bipartisan budget compromise and push any conversations about the debt ceiling or government shutdowns past the 2014 midterms. If they're smart, they'll keep the focus on the current problems with Obamacare and hope, hope, hope that they continue.
But here's the thing: I don't think they're that smart. I have this sinking feeling that 2014 is going to bring at least one Senate candidate that should have been laughed out of the room and cost them a seat. 2016 is probably going to be another clown car massacre of just plain unpalatable candidates before someone bland, inoffensive and probably richer than everyone else because that's the only way someone's going to get the Republican nomination. A future full of Mittens' awaits unless something radical is done to the GOPers.
Maybe it's creeping old age thrusting me into the welcoming arms of conservatism and ugly sweaters and corny Dad jokes- but it's irritating me that the GOPers can't get it together. It irritated me when the Dems couldn't get their shit in order after 2004- (make fun of Howard Dean's maniacal, campaign killing yell all you want but the man's 50 state strategy made sense and paid dividends for them.) If I'm stuck with only two parties, I want them to be sane, healthy and doing productive things that are as free from the constraints of dusty ideologies as possible and entrenched firmly in utilitarian pragmatism- doing sensible things for as many people as possible and not just the corporate dickheads that purchase and rent our elected officials.
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