Republicans seem to have learned absolutely nothing from their stinging debacle of a loss yesterday. Internal party conflicts are raging, with finger pointing rampant, and polls have tanked for them.
For a certain block of House conservatives, the ones who drove Speaker John Boehner toward a government shutdown and near-default against his will, the lesson of the last few weeks isn't that they overreached. Not that they made unachievable demands, put their leadership in an impossible position, damaged their party's position with the public and left a deep uncertainty about whether the GOP conference can recover and legislate.
No, what they're taking away from the 2013 crisis is: They didn't go far enough.
In a sign of the internal backlash against the right wing of the House Republican Conference, Louisiana Republican Charles Boustany questioned the political allegiances and motivations of his tea party-aligned colleagues and said they had put the GOP majority at risk in the current shutdown fight.
"There are members with a different agenda," Boustany said Wednesday in an interview in his office. "And I'm not sure they're Republicans and I'm not sure they're conservative."
After their rebuke at the polls in 2012 you'd think they might have rethought their electoral strategy, but no. Ted Cruz has already taken himself out of the running by alienating his own party. Every other 'serious' Republican presidential hopeful is
doubling down on 'debt and big government' as the big crises threatening the country:
Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) all opposed the bill, which passed with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.
Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), who has publicly said he's exploring a run, was the only lawmaker to vote in favor.
Their opposition comes even as polling indicates the shutdown is deeply unpopular with Americans, and Republicans have received the brunt of the blame for it.
And the Democratic National Committee was already out with a fundraising plea on Wednesday night based on Cruz, Paul and Rubio's "no" votes.
"These are the men the Republicans want to run for president in 2016 and they just voted for default. Hold them accountable," the email reads.
Though none of the four has yet made presidential bids official, they're all widely known to be considering it.
Their votes in opposition may be an early indication that those vying for the GOP nomination will battle it out for the title of most conservative, as the conservative wing of the party had urged Republicans to stand their ground on a shutdown until the party drew concessions on ObamaCare, which Republicans would like to see dismantled.
So the 2016 primaries are setting up to be a rerun of 2012 where it was a race to be the most conservative possible, and Mitt Romney emerged as the most 'moderate' of the bunch while claiming to be severely conservative.
They can't read or understand polls, they can't learn from history, and should not be in positions of governance. So far they are doing a masterful job of keeping themselves out of it as they continue to marginalize themselves within the majority of voters. Keep up the good work, GOP.