Gallup:
With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives engaged in a tense, government-shuttering budgetary standoff against a Democratic president and Senate, the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by 28% of Americans, down from 38% in September. This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992. [...]
More than six in 10 Americans (62%) now view the GOP unfavorably, a record high.
At this point I think the Republicans are taking it as a challenge.
Meanwhile, the wider press is taking notice of the shifting Republican rationales as to why they shut down the government in the first place. First it was Obamacare; now it ain't.
Many Senate Republicans’ demands do not include changes to Obamacare, but rather cuts to Medicare, Social Security and changes to the Tax Code. House Republicans are also considering a short-term debt hike, but no one expects that it will be accompanied by changes to Obamacare.
Couple this with
vague Republican demands that Obama give Republicans an abstract
something before the government will reopen—no word on what, just a
something—and it seems clear that the ideological underpinnings of the shutdown are scattered, at best. Republicans seem to have staged a rebellion without a cause.
Or perhaps there is a cause; the federal shutdown might be seen as part and parcel of the nullification movements convulsing their way through the farthest-right state legislatures, which can be tied to the same undercurrents that made Texas Governor Rick Perry and other party favorites grumble about secession over supposed federal injustices, which can be tied to a political movement that formed at the precise movement Barack Obama took office, one promoted originally as an anti-tax movement but which quickly devolved into a movement of conspiracy theorists, Birchers, the border-obsessed, and outright racists. The central theme is the same throughout; the federal gubbermint is imposing too much upon us, and the complaints (again, see Cantor as example of the genre) are commonly banalities of government that met no similar outrage before the current president was sworn in. The government has always bought ammunition for its agents. The taxes were no more crippling in January of 2009 then they were the previous month. The president has always signed executive orders on things. Obamacare was Romneycare once, and was a conservative think-tank formulation of what an unapologetically conservative solution to America's healthcare crisis might look like before that. Cantor's assertion that the president is utilizing illegitimate powers of rule-making is not all that far removed from the overarching far-right premise that the current president is illegitimate not just in governance, but even in birthright; it is not so much the individual decisions the president might make that offend as the premise that the president has legitimacy to make those decisions at all. A far cry, that, from the previous theories of a unitary executive. We went from flag-waving assertions of presidential infallibility to multistate nullification movements in the span of an historical blink.
So no, those that decided on fiscal nullification of the entire government are still not quite sure what their demands actually are. They know that there should be some, and that the current president is a tyrant if he does not defer to those demands once they have thought of them, but after a week of shutdown that is as far as the plan has progressed. Those suspecting that the shutdown was born purely out of spite, rather than ideology, would seem to have a stronger case by the day.
No—I think Republican party favorability can sink lower. I am sure they are still getting fine marks among the conspiracy theorists, the Birchers, the secessionists, the nullification-obsessed and the outright racists, but even all of those people will be pissed off when the government checks stop coming.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2006—Giving 'til it hurts (them:
Hotline:
| Sen. Hillary Clinton transferred $2.1 million from her Senate re-election account to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on 10/5. She also gave $250K to the DCCC and $150K to the New York State Democratic Party. (Hotline sources) |
[I]s this in addition to the $1 million she was supposed to give earlier? It's unclear, but either way, it shows that Clinton realizes the importance of this November's elections. She had over $22 million CoH at the end of Q3, so she can afford it.
I'm struck at the sacrifices so many of us are making to help out the party and its various candidates. People are seriously dipping into their living expenses to try and make a difference this fall. So I get pissed seeing Dems without serious challengers, with fat campaign accounts, who aren't contributing to the cause. If they expect the party rank and file to help fund its efforts, they need to lead by example.
|
Tweet of the Day:
There is no "political gridlock." There is one party using threats of economic ruin to pass an agenda the voters already rejected. #shutdown
— @FooteSteppes
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: The "default might be awesome" infection is spreading.
Greg Dworkin joins us in rolling our eyes at the craziness, but he brings AP-GfK and Gallup data, so he's allowed. Random intermission: local gun shops are closing for lack of ammo inventory.
Joan McCarter previews coverage of: default "truthers"; going "nuclear" over a debt ceiling filibuster; Paul Ryan pivots to entitlement & tax code reforms; discharge petition rules; the House & Senate gyms; Janet Yellen to the Fed, and; the NSA meltdown. Then, Josh Eidelson's
Salon story on the new "company towns" that keep workers trapped in indentured servitude. Yay, modernity!
High Impact Posts. Top Comments.
