On your first point, polling, this far out from a mid-term election, isn’t particularly important. If there were to be a shutdown, how that shutdown is handled is much more important than anything else. Not saying it is a guaranteed winner, just that we don’t know anything for certain. Yet the GOPe is trying to convince you that they do know for certain. They are either lying or wrong.
On your second point, this isn’t a coup attempt. “They” have no ability to take down Cruz. This isn’t some banana republic in Africa (yet?). No matter how this pans out (assuming he doesn’t do anything stupid, which would be very much out of character), he now has one of the safest seats in the Senate. More importantly, he has a fierce, knowledgeable following among those that know that we have to stop playing defense, and start playing offense. He has emerged as a leader that people will follow. As an aside, that is one thing that the GOPe doesn’t understand, and the Democrats do. If you are continually on the offensive, you only need to win a handful of times to come out ahead. But if you are always on the defense, you have to win just about every time.
More to the point, how exactly will the GOPe “end him”. He is beyond there arrows at this point. Right now, virtually every one of the GOPe (in the Senate) is in serious danger of being primaried. Even should they hold out in the primary, they are so weakened that any decent challenger would beat them in the general (with the except of a few, in very republican states). It seems to me that he is much closer to ending them, than they are to ending him.
I will grant that whipping the house as a junior senator is somewhat unprecedented. But maybe someone should have done this long ago? Either way, he is in a very safe seat (almost unbeatable, really), is a natural leader and will have a dedicated following, both at the grassroots level, and within Washington, and there is not a thing that the GOPe can do about it. I stand by my contention that he has already won.
I know that the parallel can be made to Palin. But there was one important distinction. As much as I admire Palin, she was vulnerable because she comes across as flighty (her way of speaking really rubs some people the wrong way, and a lot of people just saw her as stupid). This is by no means an insult to her, she is one of the most courageous politicians this country has seen. But the Democrats and GOPe could spin her as stupid (and other things), and her manner of speech hurt her. They will have a much more difficult time spinning Cruz, who has no such vulnerability.
How will the GOP establishment end him? After this is over, if he loses, nobody will fund him, nobody will work with him and then the process stories and whatever skeletons are out there will come out. It really isn’t that hard. Especially when it is your own people doing it to you.
As far as polling goes I am specifically speaking of polling related to a shutdown. It is massively unpopular. You barely get a majority of the Republican Party. Obviously independent and Dems against.
I know kind of cool shutting it down. Long term the numbers say it is bad.
If you think this is the principled place to take a stand I am not going to argue the point. I am just not sure it plays the way you want when half your own party is against you.