There is a way to render House Speaker John Boehner’s obstruction of a clean vote on a budget continuing resolution irrelevant, and Democratic leaders have apparently decided that it’s time to use it. As Molly Jackman explains at Brookings:

The discharge process begins with a petition filed no sooner than 30 days after the bill was referred to committee. That petition would require 218 signatures- not an implausible goal to meet in the case of the current CR. If the number of signatories passes this threshold, the petition is placed on the Discharge Calendar, where it waits for at least 7 days. At that point, it becomes privileged business on the second and fourth Mondays of the month (except during the last 6 days of the session). Any member who signed the petition can be recognized to offer the discharge motion. When the motion is called up, debate is limited to 20 minutes, divided evenly between the proponents and opponents. If the motion is rejected, the bill is not eligible for discharge again during that session and is returned to committee. If adopted, any member who signed the discharge petition can motion to call up the bill for immediate consideration. At that point, the bill becomes the business of the House, and an affirmative vote of the majority leads to its adoption….

Jackman, however, is skeptical that it will work, since the procedure would require 18 Republican moderates to openly defy their leaders. “It would take some real gutsy Republicans – who have a lot to personally gain from ending the shutdown — to make this move,” adds Jackman.
Even if the discharge petition fails, however, the process will out the ‘moderate’ Republicans who claim to support a clean CR, but won’t vote for it, as political trolls who feign support for functional government. Of the 21 or so Republican House members who say they want a clean CR, some of them are in purplish districts. If they out themselves as phonies, that could help Dems pick up seats in 2014. Here’s a list of 21 Republicans HuffPo’s Jennifer Bendery identifies as saying they are read for a clean CR:

Rep. Pat Meehan (R-Pa.): “At this point, I believe it’s time for the House to vote for a clean, short-term funding bill to bring the Senate to the table and negotiate a responsible compromise.” [Press Release, 10/1/13] Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.): “Time for a clean [continuing resolution].” [Official Twitter, 10/1/13] Rep. Jon Runyan (R-N.J.): “Enough is enough. Put a clean [continuing resolution] on the floor and let’s get on with the business we were sent to do.” [Burlington County Times, 10/1/13] Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.): A Fitzpatrick aide tells the Philadelphia Inquirer the congressman would support a clean funding bill if it came up for a vote. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/1/13] Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.): Barletta said he would “absolutely” vote for a clean bill in order to avert a shut down of the government. [Bethlehem Morning Call, 10/1/13] Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.): King thinks House Republicans would prefer to avoid a shutdown and said he will only vote for a clean continuing resolution to fund the government, according to the National Review Online. [NRO, 9/30/13] Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.): The California Republican told The Huffington Post he would ultimately support a clean continuing resolution. [Tweet by The Huffington Post’s Sabrina Siddiqui, 9/30/13] Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.): “I’m prepared to vote for a clean [continuing resolution].” [The Huffington Post, 9/29/13] Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.): A Wolf aide told The Hill that he agrees with fellow Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell (R) that it’s time for a clean continuing resolution. [The Hill, 10/1/13] Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.): A Grimm aide told The Huffington Post that the congressman supports a clean continuing resolution. [10/1/13].
Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.): A local news anchor in Minnesota tweeted that Paulsen told him he would vote for a clean resolution if given the chance. [Blake McCoy Tweet, 10/1/13] Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.): A constituent of Wittman’s sent The Huffington Post an email she got from the congressman indicating he would vote for a clean funding bill but hasn’t had “an opportunity to do so at this point.” [10/1/13] Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.): LoBiondo told The Press of Atlantic City he’ll support “whatever gets a successful conclusion” to the shutdown and a clean funding bill “is one of those options.” [The Press of Atlantic City, 10/1/13] Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.): Forbes told The Virginian-Pilot that he supports the six-week clean funding bill that passed in the Senate. [The Virginian-Pilot, 10/2/13] Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.): The congressman issued a statement saying he would “vote in favor of a so-called clean budget bill.” [Office of Rep. Jim Gerlach, 10/2/13].
Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.): Lance’s chief of staff confirmed to The Huffington Post that he told a constituent on Wednesday that Lance has voted for clean government funding bills in the past “and would not oppose doing so again should one be brought to the floor.” [10/2/13] Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho): Simpson told a Roll Call reporter Tuesday night, “I’d vote for a clean CR because I don’t think this is a strategy that works.” [Daniel Newhauser Tweet, 10/1/13] Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.): Young told Tampa Bay Times reporter Alex Leary that he’s ready to vote for a clean funding bill. “The politics should be over,” he said. “It’s time to legislate.” [Alex Leary Tweet, 10/2/13] Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.): The congressman told Miami Herald reporter Marc Caputo that he would vote for a clean funding bill, provided it has the same funding levels contained in the Senate-passed bill. [The Miami Herald, 10/2/13] Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.): “I would take a clean (continuing resolution).” [Observer-Dispatch, 10/2/13] Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.): A Davis constituent tells The Huffington Post that a Davis aide told him Wednesday, “Congressman Davis is prepared to vote ‘yes’ on a clean CR.” Asked for comment, Davis spokesman Andrew Flach told HuffPost that Davis isn’t “going to speculate” on what bills may come up in the House and “will continue to vote for proposals brought to the floor that will fund the federal government.” [10/2/2013] Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.): Asked on Twitter if he would support a clean funding bill if it came up for a vote, Griffin tweeted, “sure. Ive already said i would support.” [Official Twitter, 10/2/13].

In his (earlier) list of 17 Republican House members who profess support for a clean CR, TNR’s Nate Cohn observes, “most are from relatively competitive territory: Romney only won five of the 17 districts by more than 3 points.” However, adds Cohn:

…Perhaps as a result of their moderation, relatively few of these representatives appear vulnerable heading into 2014. Each of these candidates won by at least 7 points last November. The Cook Political Report only characterizes one seat as “lean Republican;” the rest are either “likely” or “safe” Republican.

It’s possible that skepticism about the discharge petition underestimates mounting public anger about the shutdown, which is topic “A” at social media forums, water coolers and dinner tables and across the country. A new poll by Public Policy Polling, for example, indicates that discontent with Republicans has risen to the point where 17 “battleground districts” held by Republicans are now leaning Democratic. According to the HuffPo report, “GOP In Grave Danger Of Losing House In 2014, PPP Polls Show“:

For Democrats to win a House majority, 17 seats would need to switch to their party’s favor. Results show that would be within reach, as Republican incumbents are behind in 17 of the districts analyzed: CA-31, CO-06, FL-02, FL-10, FL-13, IA-03, IA-04, IL-13, KY-06, MI-01, MI-07, MI-11, NY-19, OH-14, PA-07, PA-08, WI-07. In four districts, the incumbent Republican fell behind after respondents were told their representative supported the government shutdown: CA-10, NY-11, NY-23, VA-02. Three districts saw GOP incumbents maintain their hold over their Democratic challengers, even after hearing their elected officials’ views on the shutdown, including CA-21, NV-03 and OH-06.

Clearly, if the discharge petition passes, it will be by a tight margin. As a safety precaution, Democratic leaders should make it known that any Democratic House member who fails to support the clean CR will experience full party discipline, since any defectors on this are DINOs when it really counts. Meanwhile, OFA, MoveOn and all progressive groups should put a full-court press on the 21 aforementioned House Republicans.

A new PPP poll should encourage Dems to get mobilized to win back a majority in the House of Representatives in 2014. The findings, as reported in a HuffPo summary:

A series of polls released Sunday show just how damaging the shutdown has been for the GOP. The liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling compiled two dozen surveys, commissioned and paid for by MoveOn.org Political Action, from House districts around the country, taken from Oct. 2 through Oct. 4. Sample sizes were between 600 and 700 voters in each district.
For Democrats to win a House majority, 17 seats would need to switch to their party’s favor. Results show that would be within reach, as Republican incumbents are behind in 17 of the districts analyzed: CA-31, CO-06, FL-02, FL-10, FL-13, IA-03, IA-04, IL-13, KY-06, MI-01, MI-07, MI-11, NY-19, OH-14, PA-07, PA-08, WI-07. In four districts, the incumbent Republican fell behind after respondents were told their representative supported the government shutdown: CA-10, NY-11, NY-23, VA-02. Three districts saw GOP incumbents maintain their hold over their Democratic challengers, even after hearing their elected officials’ views on the shutdown, including CA-21, NV-03 and OH-06.

There are caveats, as always. The poll was liberal-commissioned, with relatively small samples for each of the districts. The election is still 13 months away. The margins were m.o.e. to small in many of the districts.
Still, Dems ahead of incumbents in 17 of 24 districts surveyed should give GOP realists some reason for concern. If other polls begin confirming the trend, then Dems and progressive supporters should up their game in the few swing districts remaining, and put more resources into their candidates. And if the trend is affirmed, that should also open up some senate races in favor of Democratic incumbents and candidates.
To see an excellent chart distilling the findings for each congressional district, click here.

There are some conservative commentators who can be extraordinarily amusing to read because they combine a massive sense of pompous self-righteousness with a willingness to offer without embarrassment arguments of absolutely flamboyant silliness.
A case in point is the Washington Post’s official windbag-in-residence “Big Charlie the K” Krauthammer, Whenever Big Ole Charlie boy grabs himself a handful of some GOP talking points to recycle and sets his internal dudgeon on “high,” the results are often a kind of warped comic surrealism resembling a Cohen Brothers sequence in films like Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski.
For example, here’s big Charlie hyperventilating loudly about the outrage of Obamacare:

From Social Security to civil rights to Medicaid to Medicare, never in the modern history of the country has major social legislation been enacted on a straight party-line vote. Never. In every case, there was significant reaching across the aisle, enhancing the law’s legitimacy and endurance. Yet Obama¬care — which revolutionizes one-sixth of the economy, regulates every aspect of medical practice and intimately affects just about every citizen — passed without a single GOP vote.

Now as everyone who actually follows events in Washington knows, it was decided by the top Republican leadership in a meeting in March of 2009 that the GOP would resolutely refuse to participate in any negotiations with the Democrats about the shape of the proposed law and to instead instruct all Republican representatives to totally oppose it. In Charlie’s hands, this carefully and deliberately calculated GOP strategy and decision to refuse bipartisan cooperation then becomes the basis for an argument that the law is unacceptably “partisan” because the Dems could not get any Republicans to support it.
Now many conservatives, lacking as they do a sense of absurdist humor and therefore any broad familiarity with the history of American comedy, will actually take this argument quite seriously. But connoisseurs of comedy will immediately recognize that it is actually a tongue-in-cheek update of a classic old vaudeville routine:

Judge: You have killed your mother and father. This is a vile and heinous crime that deserves the maximum penalty.
Defendant: Have pity, your honor, I’m an orphan.

The logical structure of the argument offered by Charlie the K and the homicidal defendant in the vaudeville routine is, of course, precisely the same.
But you really have to give Big Charlie an awful lot of credit as a stand-up comedian here. He manages to tell this old classic joke with a completely straight face and without even once beginning to giggle.

From a CBSnews.com report by By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backuson on a CBS news poll conducted by telephone October 1-2, 2013 among 1,021 adults nationwide and released yesterday:

Fully 72 percent of Americans disapprove of shutting down the federal government over differences on the Affordable Care Act…
…Two-thirds (66 percent) of Americans think any agreement on the budget should be kept separate from discussions on the health care law. Twenty-six percent (including slightly more than half of Republicans) think any budget agreement should also cut off funding for the law.
…Americans disapprove of how both sides are handling the budget negotiations, but more disapprove of congressional Republicans (72 percent) than President Obama and the Democrats in Congress (61 percent).
In the current budget debate, Americans think President Obama and the Democrats (48 percent) are more concerned than the Republicans in Congress (37 percent) about doing what is best for their family.
More generally, most Americans (61 percent) think congressional Republicans oppose the policies proposed by Barack Obama and the Democrats mostly to stop Democrats from gaining political advantage rather than because of a disagreement over policy. Americans are divided (47 percent to 43 percent) when considering why the president and Democrats oppose Republican policies.
…Republicans in Congress receive more of the blame for the shutdown: 44 percent of Americans blame them, while 35 percent put more blame on President Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

The grim news for the Republicans in the CBS poll is generally consistent with what other polls have recently indicated. But Republicans ought to be very nervous about this poll, since the “blame” questions are more probing than usual.

Richard Eskow’s “The GOP’s Shutdown Tab: One Billion Dollars and Counting” at HuffPo shares some of the various cost estimates for the the shutdown:

Forty million dollars an hour. A third of a billion every day. $1.6 billion every week. That’s a conservative estimate of the money Republicans are wasting by keeping the federal government closed down…Republicans in Congress recently voted to cut $4 billion per year from programs that feed the needy. In two and a half weeks they’ll have wasted more than that on their shutdown.
…That $1.6 billion per week figure first received widespread publicity when Morgan Stanley’s analytical team began discussing the potential cost of the shutdown, expressed in “basis points” (see notes below), in an investor newsletter this week. (A Morgan Stanley team member confirmed the number with us on Wednesday.) Other groups, including IHS Global Insight, have since offered similar estimates.
…Economist Stephen Fuller, who runs George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis, estimated this weekend that the Washington DC metropolitan economy could lose as much as $200 million for each day the government remains closed. Since only 15 percent of Federal workers live in the DC area, the true cost of the shutdown nationwide (including parts of the country with lower living costs) could conceivably be a billion dollars per day or more.
…A month? That’s nearly $7 billion lost (almost two years of Republican food stamp cuts). Two months? That’s nearly $14 billion.
Re the numbers: Loss estimates are based on the income of furloughed Federal employees, which has been estimated at one “basis point” of the US GDP (one 100th of one percent) per week. Using 2012 numbers from the IMF, that comes to $1,623,774,600.
That means the shutdown’s costing us $324,754,920 per day, based on a five-day work week. The cost per hour, based on an eight-hour work day, is therefore $40,954,365. A month’s losses are calculated by multiplying the weekly figure by 4.3, the number of weeks in an average month.

This from the political party that claims to hate government waste. As Eskow observes, “if there’s one thing Republicans know how to do it’s run a tab….The GOP’s Federal shutdown is on the verge of becoming the most fiscally irresponsible gesture in modern political history.”

The following post is by Erica Seifert of Democracy Corps:
Today, Democracy Corps is releasing findings from focus groups with evangelical, Tea Party, and moderate Republicans. Our conversations with these Republicans help explain why the GOP is committed to shutdown politics — and why in the future, its leaders likely will move more deeply into intransigent far-right conservatism.
While moderate Republicans want their leaders to seek what they call “middle ground,” they form only one quarter of today’s Republican voters. The most conservative factions in the party — evangelicals and Tea Party adherents — now comprise more than half of Republican partisans. These folks do not worry that Republican leaders’ intransigence has led to this kind of shutdown politics in Washington. Instead, they worry that current Republican leaders are too compromising:

The problem is there’s not a party that thinks like us. We don’t have a voice in Washington. Or where else? The Republican Party? They might as well just have a D beside their name, as far as I’m concerned. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
I don’t have a party anymore. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
And the Republicans – a lot of Republicans are just RINOs – Republican in name only. But we’ve really got to turn this ship around, or we’re in deep doo. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)

Above all, they think that the Republican Party has proved too willing to “cave” to the Obama administration’s agenda:

They cave all the time. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
They’re rollovers. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)

They turn to the Tea Party because it gives them hope that someone is finally “standing up” and “fighting back” against the forces of Obama and big government.

Well, I would say, the rise of the Tea Party, that people are getting involved, and they’re standing up… Grass roots. I’ve never been really into politics. And I’m getting more involved. And people I think are standing up. Like you were talking gun control. People are saying hey, this isn’t what’s in our Constitution, and it’s not what’s in our schools. And I think people are taking a stand now, and we need to, before it’s too late. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
America is rising back up and getting a backbone again, and making our voices heard one way or another, whether it’s Tea Party, or whatever else. People are being emboldened. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)
They are a group to be reckoned with, because if we’re going to turn things around, The Tea Party’s going to need to be part of it. And less government and less spending, and throw the rascals out – to quote Ross Perot – is what they’re all about. I’m there. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
I would say that our greatest strength is…we do have a lot of rednecks in our country, and we have a lot of people who are stepping out and saying things now. (Evangelical woman, Colorado Springs)

As a result, they believe that the Tea Party should form the new core of the Republican Party.

I think [the Tea Party] is good [for the Republican Party.] I think that the rest of the GOP needs to get on board. We need to all agree on some of the basic stuff. (Tea Party man, Raleigh)
I think it’s a good thing, because [the Tea Party represents] core Conservatives…So you’ve got the Republicans against the Conservatives, and they said, “You need to be more Conservative if you’re going to win the elections and get more people.” (Tea Party man, Raleigh)

These voters — a majority of Republican partisans — do not want their leaders in Washington to work for compromise. Instead, they support the kind of strong-arm government-by-threat-and-fiat that finds us now in a government shutdown — and possibly also heading for a default on the country’s debt. In the future, this majority looks to move the GOP farther to the right. It will do so at the expense of moderate and center-right voters, but in the interim, we should not look for more moderate Republican leaders to step forward to broker pragmatic solutions.
Read the full Democracy Corps report here.

Ed Kilgore has another Washington Monthly post scolding progressives for casual and inaccurate use of the term “nihilists” to describe House Republicans who tow the tea party line. Kilgore objects to the characterization of House Republicans as mindless bumblers who don’t really know what they want, so they try to destroy, well, everything. As Kilgore explains:

So, we are all tempted to believe, there’s really nothing Obama or congressional Democrats or even sensible Republicans can do until The Crazy burns itself out or its devotees find a distraction.
Maybe that’s true in the end, but all this “they don’t know what they want” talk is both dangerous and wrong. Perhaps conservatives are unsure at the moment about which demands to make, but they’ve got plenty of them–perhaps too many of them–close at hand. They aren’t “nihilists;” they are extremists….

Kilgore argues persuasively that, unlike nihilists, they have very specific goals, and he lists some of their policy priorities, which define a dangerous extremist agenda, including:

* “Entitlement reform,” which means structural changes in the major New Deal and Great Society safety net programs to eliminate the “mandatory” character of spending on them and the personal “entitlement” to a reasonably fixed set of benefits.
* “Tax reform,” which means rate reductions for corporations and high-income individuals, perhaps offset by regressive consumption taxes.
* Domestic spending reductions, focused on low-income non-defense discretionary accounts (the same ones being most affected by the government shutdown).
* Higher defense spending, and particularly the relaxation of sequestration for the Pentagon only.
* Some sort of tangible progress towards the GOP’s general goal of banning abortion.
* Some sort of additional relief (they’ve already obtained quite a bit of it) for the poor, beleaguered financial sector.
* Wholesale abandonment of any limitations whatsoever on fossil fuels.
And yes:
* Sand in the gears of implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

It may be that the likening of wingnut Republicans to “nihilists” is rooted in the perception of tea party grass roots demonstrators, some of whom bear at least a visual resemblance to the cartoon “nihilists” in Cohen Brothers films, like The Big Lebowski and Fargo. Think now of the fellow at a tea party demo with the “Get a Brain Morans” sign, who provoked nation-wide chuckles. The tinfoil tricorner tea party types may well have a few nihilistic personalities among them. But Kilgore is undoubtedly right that the GOP leaders who are skilfully playing them know exactly what they want.

CNN.com’s Deirdre Walsh reports that GOP moderates huddle as conservatives set agenda , noting that a “senior Republican familiar with the talks” says the effort may be small now, but it is expanding, and will grow as more Republicans hear from constituents back home that are hurting from the shutdown…”It’s Day 2 of the shutdown — we went from six or seven (members) to over 20 today…”
The New Republic’s Nate Cohn answers the question “Who Are the 17 Republicans Willing to End the Shutdown?” Cohn names names and adds, “Fifteen of the 17 representatives are from the mid-Atlantic or California. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most are from relatively competitive territory: Romney only won five of the 17 districts by more than 3 points…Perhaps because of their districts, these representatives are also relatively moderate–13 are among the 40 most liberal Republicans, as measured by DW-nominate. Eleven of the 17 representatives voted for the Senate’s fiscal cliff compromise last January…And perhaps as a result of their moderation, relatively few of these representatives appear vulnerable heading into 2014. Each of these candidates won by at least 7 points last November. The Cook Political Report only characterizes one seat as “lean Republican;” the rest are either “likely” or “safe” Republican.”
At the Week Keith Wagstaff reports on an emerging (we hope) trend in his post, “Blaming Republicans for the government shutdown: The end of false equivalence?: Even the Wall Street Journal editorial board is urging the GOP to throw in the towel”
Sabato’s Crystal Ball guest columnists John Sides and Lynn Vavreck offer this insight about “persuadable voters”, gleaned from their book, The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election : “…We can look at what voters told us in December 2011 and then after the election in November 2012. The vast majority of these voters — about 87% — preferred Obama, Romney or some other candidate in December and reported voting for the same candidate in November. That suggests a lot of stability — which isn’t surprising given that most voters are partisans and partisans are increasingly loyal in presidential elections…But that also leaves 13% who shifted — some from Obama to Romney or vice versa, and most of the rest from being undecided or preferring another candidate to preferring Obama or Romney. That’s a lot more movement than the 5% shift that averaging the horserace polls would suggest…How is it possible that 13% shifted their votes but the horserace polls moved so little? The answer is that these shifts — between the candidates, into and out of being undecided — usually didn’t advantage one or the other of the candidates.”
Also at the Crystal Ball, UNC Charlotte Professor Emeritas Theodore S. Arrington performs “simple least square” regression calculations to determine ‘partisan bias’ in the upcoming House elections. He concludes, “Looking forward from the 2012 election result, this research finds that Democrats would have to get around 53% of the two-party national House vote to have a shot at winning a majority in the lower chamber.” Arrington adds, “This is not impossible, as they performed above this level in 2006 and 2008, but it makes the task of winning a majority of the House seats an uphill climb.”
GOP SHUT DOWN COSTS AMERICANS OVER $30 MILLION PER DAY. Howzat for a headline? At Daily Kos, Laura Clawson reports on the cost of federal park shutdowns inb surrounding communities: “The National Park Service is losing $450,000 a day in entrance fees and other revenue thanks to the Republican shutdown, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg in park-related economic shutdown losses. The communities surrounding national parks will suffer, too, to the tune of $30 million a day…With vacationers banned from the parks, they won’t pass through towns by park entrances. That means business lost for hotels and restaurants, grocery stores, supply stores and more.” So much fore the GOP’s “friend of small business” meme. And none of the estimates affecting other government agencies thus far factor in the opportunity cost of not doing the peoples’ business.
Worse, yes worse, Josh Levs reports at CNN: “The government shutdown is “extremely damaging” to U.S. intelligence operations, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Wednesday…The shutdown “seriously damages our ability to protect the safety and security of this nation,” he told a Senate panel…Approximately 70% of employees were furloughed, he said.” So much for the Republicans’ cred for protecting our national security.
At Alternet, syndicated talk show host Thom Hartmann does a good job of explaining how the Boehner shutdown robbed the ACA exchange rollout of millions of dollars of free television publicity: “Every news organization in the country had prepared detailed packages and reports on what Obamacare is, how to sign up for it…and all the details…Obamacare experts were being lined up as guests for September 30 and October 1 on radio and television networks and stations across the country. Local stations planned their local versions of this, talking about their state programs…Those two days we’re going to be a big deal, programming wise. I know. I’m in the industry. We were planning it, too…All those programs on radio and television would have given the equivalent of millions of dollars worth of advertising to Obamacare, and caused tens of millions of young people to learn about the program, get excited about the program, and begin signing up right away.” Nearly all of those programs were blacked out by the shutdown.
Liberal Democrat though I am, I like this image crafted by Grover “The Pledge” Norquist, as reported by Talking Points Memo’s Igor Bobic: “Cruz said he would deliver the votes and he didn’t deliver any Democratic votes. He pushed House Republicans into traffic and wandered away.” More humane, at least, than drowning the baby in the bathtub.

From Allison Kopicki’s “Closer Look at Polls Finds Views of Health Law a Bit Less Negative” at the New York Times:

Although much polling has shown that more Americans disapprove of the 2010 health care law than approve, recent polling has shown that a slice of those who disapprove are critical of the law because it does not go far enough in changing the nation’s health care system.
The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll conducted in mid-September posed a two-part question, first asking respondents whether they perceived the law as favorable or unfavorable. Those who answered unfavorable were then asked if their unfavorable view was because the law went too far or not far enough.
Overall, 33 percent of Americans found the law favorable, 43 percent found it unfavorable, and 17 percent were unsure or did not give an opinion. But the faction that disapproved of the law broke down this way: 33 percent who said the law went too far, 7 percent who said the law did not go far enough, and 3 percent who could not say either way.
So when we account for those who disapproved because they wanted more expansive reform, the poll shows that support for the law and opposition to it are much more even: 36 percent oppose the law, and 40 percent are in support of some form of federal health care transformation (if one includes the 7 percent who want a more expanded version).

Kopicki goes on to add that a CNN/ORC poll conducted in late September found that 49 percent of respondents either favored the Affordable Care Act or wanted the law to be even more liberal, with 39 percent opposed to it. Similarly, reports Kopicki, a CBS News poll conducted in July found 39 percent favoring repeal of the ACA, with 54 percent want to keep the law, expand it, or modify it.
Then there’s the New York Times/CBS News poll released last week indicating that “a majority said they would like to see Congress uphold the law and make it work as well as possible (56 percent), rather than stop the law by defunding it (38 percent),” with nearly 70 percent of the uninsured saying “they wanted the health care law upheld and made to work.” Kopicki also cites the heavy traffic that has been reported on the health exchange web sites as yet another indication that the Affordable Care Act is growing in popularity.
Of course none of this will persuade the right-wing ideologues to modify their increasingly indefensible arguments that “Obama care is hugely unpopular” anytime soon. But Dems can reasonably expect that their bellowing about opinion surveys supporting their position will likely morph into grumbling refusal to discuss polls before too long.

From Eric Boehrlet’s “How The Press Helped Cause The GOP Shutdown: Years Of Bogus ‘Both-Sides-To-Blame’ Coverage Have Emboldened Radical Republicans” at Media Matters for America:

…so it goes within portions of the Beltway press corps who are straining to include Democrats in the shutdown blame game; to make sure “both sides” are targeted for tsk-tsk scoldings about “Washington dysfunction,” and that the Republicans’ truly radical nature remains casually ignored. This media act is getting old. And this media act may be emboldening the Republicans’ extreme behavior.
…The media lesson for Republicans? There’s very little political downside to pushing extremism if the press is going to give the party a pass.
And now, rather than seeing the health care obstructionism as part of an obvious Republican continuum, and rather than noting it followed the gun law obstructionism, which followed the sequester obstructionism, which followed the Chuck Hagel confirmation obstructionism, which followed the Hurricane Sandy emergency relief obstructionism, which followed consistent obstructionism on judicial nominees, the press remains reluctant to connect the obvious dots that help paint the portrait of a truly radical Republican party.

Narrowing the scope of ultimate responsibility for the shutdown debacle, Boehlert adds, “It’s a rump faction of as few as 30 hardcore House Republicans who refuse to support a clean bill funding the government (and the GOP leadership which has refused to stand up to them) that precipitated the shutdown.” That’s right, 30 Republican obstructionists have intimidated Speaker John Boehner into holding the country hostage to their unrealistic “kill Obamacare” fantasies.
Boehlert peppers his post with examples of the MSM’s orgy of false equivalence. In addition to Politico’s Mike Allen, who Boehlert cites in his lede:

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl last night reported the pending government shutdown represents “Washington dysfunction at its absolute worst,” not Republican dysfunction. Meanwhile, CBS posted the headline, “Yet Again, Congress Searches For a Short-Term Budget Fix,” while NBC’s First Read went with “Congress – Playing With Fire.”
…On CNN, anchor Chris Cuomo announced “Both sides seem to be saying, forget that constitutional responsibility to pass laws to fund the government. Let’s just take a pass on it this time,” while an ABC News shutdown dispatch reported that “neither side appears willing to compromise to reach middle ground.”
…On and on it goes. A September 20 editorial in the Washington Post cast a wide net in terms of who was to blame, pointing the finger at unnamed “mischievous legislators,” “Congress,” and the “people who run this town.” While noting that House Republicans had initiated the shutdown, the Post warned that “both sides are inordinately concerned” with the politics of the situation and will need to “compromise[e] for the common good.”
Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal newsroom has been working overtime to make sure readers think Democrats and Republicans share the blame, publishing generic “Washington” headlines, claiming the “increasingly dysfunctional Congress” is to blame for the shutdown threat (not Republicans), and falsely reporting the GOP’s radical health care maneuvers really just represent “a debate over the scope and size of government.”

The irony is that many of these reporters fancy themselves impartial moderates, while doing the bidding of GOP propagandists. Of course there are exceptions. But would it be too much to ask that national MSM reporters research a little deeper, stop parroting spoon-fed cliches from the Republican message machine and show a little less laziness in informing their readers?
Boehlert quotes Ryan Lizza, who rolls it out straight and clear:

More to the point, as The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza recently noted on CNN’s Reliable Sources, “What we are witnessing in Washington to a large extent is an internal fight within the Republican Party.” He added, “I think it’s hard for mainstream reporters to sort of say that because we want most issues to be nice and tidy. Democrats and Republicans are equally to blame.”

So far, most Americans have not yet been hustled by the false equivalence reportage. As a new Quinnipiac poll finds

Nearly three-fourths of American voters, or 74%, disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are doing their job, according to a Quinnipiac Poll released Tuesday. That compares to 60% who don’t like the way congressional Democrats are performing…If elections were held today, 43% of voters say they would choose the Democratic candidate while 34% would vote for the Republican…That 9-point difference is the widest in favor of Democrats since 2009 in the Quinnipiac Poll,

Boehlert concludes, “It does seem hard for mainstream reporters to drop the “both-sides-are-to-blame” angle. Yet every one of them must understand that that tired old trope doesn’t apply to this weird Republican crack up.”