The reason why the dems have an edge of the government shutdown is because there are RINOs out there such as John McCain ON TAPE claiming that the republicans in the House were responsible for the shutdown. I'm sorry but a republican saying that is far more credible to the low information voter than a democrat claiming that.
It's interesting that you have up you have up to this point excluded those McCain, King, Graham clips only a few days old that are on video and far easier to find on YouTube than it would be to find an April 2008 video claiming that republicans want a shutdown.
And Dems had played these tapes of many of the same Republicans saying they wanted a shutdown.
I bet that if you had tapes of Dems at rallies calling for a shutdown to make Obamacare more socialist for example,, tapes playing on FNC every day during the shutdown, that all the RINOs would have lined up to hold out just like they did to vote against Obamacare in 2010.
Even the weakest RINO cant resist a winning hand.
RINOs get weak kneed, but how many are in solid red districts?
Because I was pointing out something different than you were.
Cobern did it too, said House will fold like a deck of cards.
In the end it was Boehner who made the final call.
Hey, I am not know for likin McCain and Grahamnesty but its too simple of a theme to claim that they were important enough to end it.
Losing 60% of GOP senators at the start, 80% of all Senators, when you needed at least 40% of all Senators to stop anything (that first vote) , was right there a claer message to the House.