Who gets the blame for a shutdown? The answer isn't as obvious as "both parties," though that's where most polling analysis leads us. Pew, for example, has a poll out that says:
Currently, 39% say Republicans would be more to blame if the two sides cannot agree on a budget and the government shuts down, 36% say the Obama administration, and 16% volunteer both sides.
The
Washington Post comes up with similar numbers:
In the poll, 37 percent say they would fault the Obama administration for a partial federal shutdown. The same number would blame the Republicans in Congress. Those figures are nearly the same as in late February, despite five weeks of fierce budget negotiations and positioning on the issue.
But dig down a little, and you find this from Pew:
Among all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, fully 68% of those who agree with the Tea Party say lawmakers who share their views should stand by their principles, even if it means the government shuts down. That compares with just 35% of Republicans and GOP leaners who have no opinion of the Tea Party or disagree with the movement.
Pew poll on govt shutdown
Democrats are far more unified: 69% say lawmakers who share their views should be more willing to compromise, even if that means they pass a budget they disagree with. There are no substantive differences in the views of liberal Democrats and the party’s conservatives and moderates. Independents also say lawmakers should be more willing to compromise (by 53% to 38%).
The "blame" number is
a bit volatile (but never worse than split for Democrats). But if you recall, Obama generally gets twice as much credit for being willing to compromise as Republicans, a stat likely to be made worse with linking a government shutdown with tea party intransigence and
unpopularity. And interestingly in the
WaPo numbers:
But underneath those stagnant numbers is growing disillusionment among rank-and-file Republicans. Fully 40 percent of all Republicans now see the Republicans in Congress as simply posturing on the budget, up 13 percentage points from five weeks ago. Republicans are also significantly more apt to see Obama as playing politics (rising from 70 to 81 percent).
Democrats will try to paint Republicans in a corner—for example, see
Chuck Schumer:
As the news circulated that a White House meeting had produced no deal between Speaker John A. Boehner and President Obama, Senator Charles Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said that if a shutdown was in the offing, the blame should lie at the feet of Republicans.
“A deal with $33 billion in spending cuts is right there for the taking,” Mr. Schumer said in an e-mail. “But the House leadership will need to stand up to the Tea Party.” Democrats also denounced the Republicans’ long-term proposal.
Conservative Republicans are not going to get what they want, and independents are not likely to follow them, since the public wants compromise. This isn't a mid-term, and indies will decide the 2012 election. The question isn't about whether Republican leaders "get it," but rather whether they can do anything about it. From
Charlie Cook:
Among the worries the party now has is that a government shutdown could get blamed on the GOP. Additionally, these party insiders believe that taking on entitlements, specifically Medicare, could jeopardize the party’s hold on the House, its strong chances of taking the Senate and the stronghold that the party has been established with older white voters—not coincidentally, Medicare recipients.
That's neither a recipe for compromise nor a recipe for winning. Or, as we say in the trade, lose-lose for Republicans.
[UPDATE]
If there's a government shutdown, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that there will be enough blame to go around.
A plurality of 37 percent say they would blame congressional Republicans if the current budget disagreement leads to a shutdown of the federal government, while 20 percent say they would blame President Obama and another 20 percent would blame congressional Democrats.
Seventeen percent say they would blame everyone, and another 2 percent say they would blame both Obama and congressional Democrats.