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McCain: There’ll be no more government shutdowns — I guarantee it
Hot Air ^ | 11:21 am on October 17, 2013 | by Allahpundit

Posted on 10/17/2013 9:49:56 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

I wasn’t aware that Maverick, whose pronouncements now carry roughly the same weight with tea partiers as Obama’s, is in a position to be guaranteeing anything about how House Republicans might behave. In fact, here’s what one GOP congressman said last night after the final conference huddle:

As Republican lawmakers left the closed meeting Wednesday, some were already thinking of the next fight.

“I’ll vote against it,” said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.”

If by “guarantee” McCain means that Boehner would rather chew glass than go through this again, fair enough. But as we’ve just seen, Boehner doesn’t always set the menu within his caucus. Per Tim Huelskamp, there may be another bowl of tasty glass for him on the way:

Others view the calendar as a way to embolden conservatives before those elections. “I hope we eventually have a battle and I hope it’s directed long-term about what the answers are. By then we will have a lot of primary challenges already filed,” said Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp. “There are some folks that might change their opinion if they have a primary challenger. A number of those states will have already been through those primary deadlines that will encourage some folks to have some more backbone.”

There’s lots of reasons most House Republicans would want to avoid another shutdown — bad polling, caucus rifts, diminishing credibility when the leadership can’t win anything major — but that was true of this shutdown too and none of those factors stopped it. The point of the shutdown, I always thought, wasn’t to exert real leverage at the bargaining table with Obama, who was never, ever going to cave on O-Care, but to show grassroots tea partiers that House Republicans weren’t afraid to cross this line in the name of fighting the good fight. It was a litmus test for Boehner and the leadership, essentially, to show that they hated ObamaCare enough that they’d close down the government for awhile to protest it. They did, which is why House conservatives aren’t talking about ousting him even though the negotiations were a total debacle for the GOP. Point being, you never know when a new litmus test might arise — and if, per Huelskamp, one arises (or is engineered) in the midst of a hot primary campaign, Boehner might decide that chewing glass is the least painful option available to him.

I can imagine cases too where a shutdown would be fully justified on the merits, whatever the polling might look like. Imagine if Obama, flush from his big “win,” announces around New Year’s that he needs another $300 million from Congress to make Healthcare.gov run as smoothly as it should. The new government funding bill expires on January 15th so we’d be looking at another shutdown to start 2014 if the two sides can’t agree. Should the House pony up that $300 million and double down on Obama’s and HHS’s gross incompetence in building the exchanges? Of course not. They had three years to plan for this; at the barest minimum, any new funding would have to be conditioned upon delaying the law for a year. Obama would resist that, of course, on the assumption that he could and would win a new battle with Republicans over appropriating the money in the court of public opinion. And so we’d end up with Shutdown II. So much for Maverick’s “guarantee”?

Exit question: Am I hallucinating or does John “Wacko Birds” McCain, who accused a Republican colleague in the House of being a moron on national television less than 24 hours ago, actually warn the GOP at the end here to observe the 11th Commandment?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: collaborator; mccain; sellout; shutdowns
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

21 posted on 10/17/2013 9:55:50 AM PDT by Hotlanta Mike ("Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it." Lao Tzu)
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To: svcw
McCain’s brain has liquified

Wow, with that much liquid you could make a...no, uh you could make...never mind.

22 posted on 10/17/2013 9:56:31 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Jim Robinson

Which is exactly what he will do if the senate is 50-50 after 2014


23 posted on 10/17/2013 9:56:55 AM PDT by digger48
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Time for your meds, John


24 posted on 10/17/2013 9:56:59 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
How many Minority Leaders are there in the Senate? McCain is going over McConnell's head. Isn't that insubordination in the Senate's Old Boys Club? If so, Mitch better grow a spine and gonads and put Juan in his place. (Good luck with that Mitch the eunuch.)
25 posted on 10/17/2013 9:57:16 AM PDT by MasterGunner01
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To: All
(A BIG Hat Tip To Freeper Dogbert41 For the punchline!!)

"Following Obama out of the restroom,
McCain suddenly realized he missed a spot."


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26 posted on 10/17/2013 9:58:03 AM PDT by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
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To: Hotlanta Mike

I second THAT!


27 posted on 10/17/2013 9:58:54 AM PDT by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off. -786 +969)
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To: brooklyn dave

The national debt was $3.655 Trillion when McCain first went to Washington. After 30 years of McCain it is now $17 Trillion. We should listen to him because?


28 posted on 10/17/2013 10:01:29 AM PDT by csmusaret (Will remove Obama-Biden bumperstickers for $10)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Can someone pull the plug on Juan?


29 posted on 10/17/2013 10:02:00 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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To: MasterGunner01

He is special because he was a Presidential candidate and a POW in the Vietnam War.


30 posted on 10/17/2013 10:03:21 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: TADSLOS

that traitorous drunken pos SecDef referred to a “manufactured crisis”, to our MILITARY, using terms straight out of the Valerie Jarrett playbook?

oh man

our country is so SCREWED

Now obvious that EVERY agency is politicized and partisan


31 posted on 10/17/2013 10:03:24 AM PDT by silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

McSlime and his comrades must live in an airtight bubble to not know how much they are despised, hated, and held in utter contempt by conservatives.


32 posted on 10/17/2013 10:03:24 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Resign or switch parties.


33 posted on 10/17/2013 10:07:17 AM PDT by TangoLimaSierra (To win the country back, we need to be as mean as the Libs say we are.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

He can say that because he knows that tucked away in the bill is an amendment that deceases the power of Congress.


34 posted on 10/17/2013 10:07:25 AM PDT by RetSignman (As Goes America, So Goes the World. A Communist America, A Communist World.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

The Establishment has too well established itself...


35 posted on 10/17/2013 10:08:22 AM PDT by GraceG
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To: LyinLibs
Mitch McConnell

Looks too much like this


36 posted on 10/17/2013 10:09:39 AM PDT by GraceG
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
All you can guaranteed, McJuan, is an inter-party bloodbath.

We voters will do whatever the hell we want, and we won't go back to the GOPe.

37 posted on 10/17/2013 10:09:42 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

38 posted on 10/17/2013 10:11:33 AM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)
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To: Hotlanta Mike

God Bless the memory of Bud Day, but I think he was wrong about McCain’s good conduct as a POW. I believe he is The Hanoian Candidate. Everything he’s done since reflects it.

Not that they didn’t want to get rid of him.


39 posted on 10/17/2013 10:12:18 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

It is unfortuante but I suppose was inevitable, now wherever I see a GOP-e candidate I treat that candidate like a democrat. Actually, I treat them worse than the democrat. At least the democrat is being honest about who they are.


40 posted on 10/17/2013 10:13:38 AM PDT by FlipWilson
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