“So the question is, what do we want to talk about between now and the election? The GOP shutting down the government,the GOP sending the government into default, or Obamacare?”
I’m okay with Obamacare being the message. But what is the GOP message? They nominated the architect of Obamacare (Romney) to be the presidential candidate in 2012. John McCain one day says it can’t be repealed and the next day calls for total repeal. Olympia Snow could have blocked its passage in committee but voted to let the bill out of committee so the entire Senate could vote on it (knowing it would pass). Ted Cruz tries to filibuster but has the rug pulled out from under him by other GOP Senators.
I have a feeling the GOP establishment is happy with Obamacare. The multinational corporations and Wall Street bankers they depend on for campaign contributions certainly want the government to assume the cost of employer funded healthcare. I perceive the fight to be more token resistance than a real effort. Certainly the message (to the extent there is a message) comes in spurts. We don’t hear the ongoing and relentless daily pounding we get from the Democrats when they are pushing an issue.
Those are all fair points.
The question for me is that if Ted Cruz is just one man, what happens when we have a Senate majority created by electing others like him (aka Tea Party Conservatives) ... ?
We’re screwed if the Dems keep the Senate. We might be screwed if the Republicans capture it. But there’s also a good chance that a GOP Senate with a bunch of Cruzes, or Pauls or Lee’s, coupled with an enlsrged and emboldend Tea Party caucus in the House, can start turning things around, or at least do things that can pave the way to a GOP President in 2017.
That’s a risk worth taking. I’d rather roll the dice and lose than not, and look back 5 or 10 or 20 years from now and really wish I had.
The debt limit was passed, but that doesn’t mean we have to surrender to the GOPe on everything else. Our best chance of true change is to change not only the numbers of Democrats and Republicans in DC but to also toss out quite a few incumbents of both parties.
You’re right that nothing will change if we keep reelecting the likes of McCain or nominating squishes like Romney for president. We won’t get them all, but we absolutely MUST replace at least some of them with staunch conservatives. The Republican Party is still the best means to accomplish that.