Governor For Now

It was 35 days to Election Day, and Chris Christie was asked the question(s) the media has been afraid to ask.  It took a televised debate, but finally he was queried about whether he intends to serve out the second term as governor he will be awarded on November 5.

According to ABC News, at the New Jersey gubernatorial debate on Tuesday

When the Republican governor was asked directly whether he was going to run for president, Christie did not rule it out, at first joking that he “didn’t anticipate” the question at all.

“Listen my mother told me a long time ago … do the job you have at the moment the best you possibly can and the future will take care of itself,” Christie said at the debate this evening at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. “The fact is there have been people talking about me running for president since 2010 and they all said I would do it in 2012 and I said I wouldn’t and I didn’t. And the fact is after 2017 I’m going to be looking for another job anyway.

“I’m going to continue to do my job the best way I possibly can and I am not going to declare tonight … that I am or I am not running for president and you know what? People don’t expect me to, they expect me to do my job,” he said.

Christie was then pressed by the moderator for WCBS-TV in New York City as to why people should vote for him if he can’t make a commitment for four years. Christie responded that he will continue to “work as hard” for New Jersey residents.

“I don’t think anybody in America or in the state of New Jersey expects anybody three years away to tell them what they are going to do. Life’s too long,” Christie said. “I won’t make those decisions until I have to.”

Governor Christie cannot make a commitment for four years not because he will gain the Repub 2016 presidential nomination, but because his financial donors may make it nearly impossible for him to remain governor of the Garden State.   Steve Kornacki of Salon and MSNBC wrote in July

What’s not getting much attention is the flip side: the severe consequences that winning a second term as governor could have for Christie’s ability to raise money for a national campaign – and the possibility that he might be compelled to resign his office during his second term if he’s going to seek the White House.

This is the result of two federal rules, one from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board dating back nearly two decades and the other from the SEC in 2011, that drastically curb the ability of employees of Wall Street firms to donate to governors seeking federal office and of the uniquely broad appointment powers that come with the New Jersey governorship. Put together, they have the potential to prevent Christie from raising millions of dollars from a cash-rich sector – the financial services industry – that has been particularly enthusiastic about him.

“It affects a huge swath of potential donations,” Ken Gross, a former lawyer for the Federal Election Commission who now runs the political law practice at the firm Skadden, Arps, said on Sunday. “Because it not only affects corporate donations where permissible at the state level to a governor or somebody, but also affects [corporations'] PACs and individual executives’ personal giving down to very, very low limits – $250 or $350, depending on what you’re talking about. So a tremendous impact.”

Enacted in 1994, the first of the MSRB rules bars employees of firms that underwrite state and municipal bonds from donating to any official seeking federal office who has any role in giving business to bond firms. That prohibition was expanded just over two years ago to include employees of firms that advise state pension funds – effectively doubling, from $2.7 trillion to more than $5 trillion, the market covered.

Penalties for firms found to be in violation of the rule are steep. For example, when a Morgan Stanley executive donated $1,000 to then-Massachusetts Governor William Weld’s 1996 U.S. Senate campaign, the firm was banned from doing business with the state for two years. The rule was triggered because Weld had the power to issue state bonds, and it cost Morgan Stanley millions in business.

But when Mitt Romney considered Christie for the No. 2 spot on the Republican ticket last year, the rules were apparently on his mind. Last August, after Romney tapped Paul Ryan instead of Christie, the New York Post reported that the talks with Christie broke down over the SEC issue:

Christie’s aides tried to find a way around the rules — like passing off power over state bonds and pensions to another official.

But that didn’t satisfy Romney officials. They feared that if Christie ran for veep and didn’t resign, the Obama campaign could challenge any Wall Street donations.

The Washington Post's Dan Balz discovered that Mitt Romney- whose ethical standards exceed those of Christie*-  believed that Christie might  have to play by the rules were he selected as the vice-presidential nominee in 2012.  Apparently, that was difficult for the NJ governor to understand. Kornacki continued

In his new book, Balz provides additional background on the Romney-Christie talks, reporting that Romney raised the issue directly with Christie and asked him if he’d be willing to resign his office in order to join the GOP ticket. Christie, according to Balz, laughed at the question, apparently not realizing at first that Romney was serious. As Balz tells it:

“A Romney adviser said the campaign never found an adequate solution to the pay-to-play rule as it might affect sitting governors running for president or vice president. They came away convinced that the rule will have a potentially significant effect on sitting governors who decide to seek the presidency in the future.

 Christie, of course, isn’t the only sitting governor in the 2016 mix. But for several reasons the bond and investment adviser rules affect him more than any other would-be candidate:

New Jersey’s governorship is the most powerful in the nation. Christie enjoys broad authority over appointments, which makes it easy to tie him to decisions involving bond underwriters and investment advisers. For instance, he appoints a majority of the members of the board that oversees bond deals. Other governors aren’t as exposed. As ProPublica’s Jake Bernstein reported last year, New York’s Andrew Cuomo, a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination in ’16, comes from a “sole trustee” state where an elected comptroller has power over the state’s pension funds.

New Jersey also has the most strict pay-to-play laws in the country, with the state doubling the penalties prescribed by the SEC for any firms violating its prohibitions. There are additional penalties imposed at the municipal level.

Christie is particularly popular with exactly the type of donor most likely to be affected by the SEC rules: Wall Street executives.

It’s enough to raise the question of whether Christie, whose second term wouldn’t expire until January 2018, might decide that staying on as governor is more trouble than it’s worth if he opts to seek the presidency.

The governor's decision to resign from the governorship to pursue the presidency will be made easier by the assumption of the office by his running mate, the still-unknown Kim Guadagno.  Loyal to the rude and crude politician she serves, Guadagno likely will sacrifice her own credibility by avoiding leveling with the people of the state about the mess she will have inherited from a governor who has been a disaster for New Jersey.


*yes, really... and by a large margin

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Of Two Johns


Sometimes a centrist writes something so remarkably naive that one is moved to ask:  was he writing while under the influence? did he write during a sort of dream sequence? did a Republican break into his home, put a gun to his head, and persuade him to write such gibberish?

And so Slate's John Dickerson has an idea how to end the budget showdown.   He writes

The House would pass a “clean” debt limit increase and clean continuing resolution to keep government funded, which is what the president wants. Then there would be a side agreement cooked up by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Boehner that would include something that Republicans want. That agreement would name budget conferees to debate the big issues of spending, taxes, entitlements, and economic growth, and it would include some guarantee—probably in the form of a stick—to make sure the conferees did their work.

The pain would have to be more than just holding members’ paychecks because the stakes are higher now. Such pain mechanisms used to be considered a joke, but the no budget/no pay gimmick worked—the Senate did pass a budget after all. Sen. Rob Portman has a bill intended to end dysfunction in the budget process by steadily decreasing funding if there is no budget—a version of that scheme might be adapted to help members focus or face cuts to popular programs. Perhaps a version of that could be bolted on to this side agreement. Or, the debt limit increase could be of short duration to help focus the discussions.

You know he wrote that- I couldn't have made it up. This is worse than even setting up another supercommittee, which Dickerson acknowledges it is tantamount to. If there is agreement for a steadily decreasing funding if there is no budget, no budget would trigger no funding.  Doubtless Republicans would have a field day with that, stalling and avoiding agreement on a budget, knowing that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is slow death to programs which aid the poor, the elderly, the jobless, the middle class. Or what they call "nirvana."

Dickerson wasn't done.  He recommends a "side-agreement" to include discussion of "Medicare-means testing and changing the inflation formula for cost of living adjustments in Medicare, often referred to as chained CPI." That way, presumably, we can cut benefits across the board for the elderly (through chained CPI) while eventually turning Medicare into a welfare program by means testing. In Dickerson's dream state, Republicans surely would want to maintain a program in which the affluent pay to help out the elderly who aren't as well-off.

Obviously, making such major concessions to the GOP would validate its strong-armed tactics.  The editors of the Detroit Free Press note Republicans are

shifting their hostage-taking to the nation’s credit, saying they won’t vote to pay for what America has borrowed until they get concessions on Social Security and Medicare.

The destructive pattern is a threat to stable governance.

Actually, let’s be clear about who’s behind the blackmail here. Right now, according to many sources there are enough Republican votes to end this nonsense. But the tea party faction of the GOP has cowed its leadership. House Speaker John Boehner now says there’s no way he’ll offer or support a “clean” bill to raise the debt limit, even though he offered one last spring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Boehner also says he doesn’t have the votes to get the government back open without some changes to health reform, despite what many others seem to say.

So here we are. A week into a shutdown that is yanking billions out of the economy and threatening people’s livelihoods. A week away from the nation defaulting on its debt payments, which could trigger another economic meltdown.

In a sense, the GOP is embracing the strategy of the Confederacy: The party is willing to sink the republic to preserve its own ideology. There’s no point to government at all if it’s not going to operate. And if America doesn’t pay its bills, then it’s not an economic superpower — it’s a deadbeat. But the tea party is willing to claim victory behind either one of those outcomes.

The president isn’t negotiating, and shouldn’t.

Much has been written exploring the motives of the Repub obstructionists.  On the surface, it is about repealing the Affordable Care Act.   But House Speaker John Boehner- who holds the key to averting the crisis- seems not to be obsessed with the ACA, and almost everyone recognizes that the President is not likely to tinker with reform which has come to bear his name. But while the aim may be dismantling Obamacare, the goal may be, as the Free Press inadvertently suggested, the disembowlement of government.

There is, in fact, "no point to government at all if it's not going to operate."    While faith in government erodes with each passing day due to GOP machinations, Republicans pray the raison d'etre of the pro-government party is dealt a blow.   Support for functions of government declines (as would result with means-testing of Medicare) and social programs would be cut.  Defense programs would remain sacrosanct while a big hole is torn in the social safety net.

That may be difficult for the likes of John Dickerson to understand.  After all, he maintains that without significant concessions, "Boehner may be helpless to move his members toward a deal."   Anyone who still believes the John Boehner is "helpless" and a captive of the "Tea Party" probably believes also the Speaker's party has only the interests of the nation at heart.



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His Name Ought To Rhyme With Mum, Drum, And Ho Hum

Judging by a Politico report, President Obama is getting closer to acknowledging that the Speaker of the House is recklessly toying with the nation's economy or, as the latter would put it, "playing games" with the full faith and credit of the American economy.   We read

“The truth of the matter is there are enough Republican and Democratic votes in the House of Representatives right now to end the shutdown immediately with no partisan strings attached. The House should hold that vote today,” Obama said, daring Boehner to take action.

But, he said, Boehner hasn’t brought the clean continuing resolution to the House floor because “the doesn’t apparently want to see the government shutdown end at the moment unless he’s able to extract concessions.”

That's rather obvious, but it's the closest the President has come to calling out the leading Repub in the country.  Salon's Mugambi Jouet has gone much further, explaining

How much blame does John Boehner deserve for the shutdown of the federal government? A common narrative in recent months has been that he is a weak Speaker who has failed to rein in hard-line Republican House members, especially in the Tea Party’s ranks. Radical Congressmen make uncompromising ideological demands, the narrative goes, thereby forcing Boehner to take inflexible stances he does not really believe in, including the government shutdown. What most commentators tend to overlook is that Boehner himself has helped foment the radicalism of the modern Republican Party.

For years, he has made fiery declarations promoting the visceral animosity of numerous Republicans to the Obama administration. “Your government is disrespecting you, your family, your job, your children,” Boehner illustratively said in a 2010 speech, a year before he became Speaker of the House. “Your government is out of control. Do you have to accept it? Do you have to take it?” Boehner answered his own question: “Hell no, you don’t!”

Before the passage of the Obama administration’s health care reform in 2010, Boehner likened the law to “Armageddon,” the Biblical apocalypse, and said it was a “monstrosity” that would “ruin” America. Interviewed on 60 Minutes, he was literally moved to tears when explaining his desire that children continue to “have a shot at the American Dream” despite the menace posed by Obama’s policies (see the 6 min. mark of this video). Still in 2010, the year the GOP took back the House, Boehner warned that “we will not compromise on our principles.”  He evenexplicitly noted that he rejects the word “compromise.”

Some commentators argue that Boehner has just been pandering to the Tea Party, yet this point overlooks how he already took hard-line stances well before the Tea Party movement came into existence. Back in the 1990s, he led a drive to abolish the Department of Education and helped Newt Gingrich craft the “Contract With America.”

Boehner is among the affluent persons who have favored “winner-take-all” economic policieswhile pretending to defend working-class and middle-class Americans. He assures that he headed a “small business” prior to becoming a Congressman in 1991. His wife also stresses that the Boehners are “just normal, average people.” In reality, he made millions while running a marketing firm. As a Congressman, he distributed checks from tobacco lobbyists to fellow legislators on the floor of the House itself. Close ties to lobbyists later helped him become Speaker of the House.

While he has had a tense relationship with Tea Party-aligned Congressmen, who have accused him of being overly compromising, he largely shares their worldview, long backing the kind of radical laissez faire policies embraced by the Tea Party.

On global warming, he has echoed the scornful skepticism of scientific research that is relatively ordinary among contemporary Republicans—unlike among conservatives elsewhere in the industrialized world, many of whom identify climate change as a man-made problem. For example, he described the notion that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful to the environment as “almost comical” and emphasized that cows emit carbon dioxide too.

In other words, there are reasons to doubt the common notion that a clear dichotomy exists between Boehner and the most radical members of the House, who are mainly faulted for spurring the government shutdown. By both American historical standards and international standards, it is the modern GOP that is hard-line, not just its Tea Party faction. This peculiarity is epitomized by the adamant opposition of virtually all Republicans to universal health care, which is widely accepted by all leading right-wing parties in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. 

It is widely understood that Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who dreams of the White House, is a dangerous radical. But with the opposing party in charge of the Senate, he was unable to get his own chamber to block a clean continuing resolution.  But John Boehner is not merely a tear-jerking, chain-smoking, human tanning bed. He has real power and is in control of one of the two chambers of Congress which, given the filibuster elsewhere, makes him the most powerful member of the United States Congress.  Whether himself an extremist or a coward unwilling to say "no" to the children in his caucus, he is the one keeping the federal government closed and jeopardizing the country's credit rating

For months, after the GOP House and the Democratic Senate each passed a budget, Democrats pleaded with House Republicans to appoint Representatives to a joint committee to reconcile the two resolutions.  The Republicans refused and now, under threat of a debt default, are demanding the Democratic Party meet their terms.  And John Boehner, interviewed Sunday by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, claims

My goal here is not to have the United States default on their debt. My goal here is to have a serious conversation about those things that are driving the deficit and driving the debt up. And the president's refusal to sit down and have a conversation about this is putting our nation at risk of default.

There is a word for this sort of effort to manipulate facts and the American people. And there is a word for people like John Boehner, one which brings to mind a classic episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.


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Give Him Hell, Harry

Friday, House Speaker John Boehner whined

This isn't some damn game. The American people don't want their government shut down and neither do I. All we're asking for is to sit down and have a discussion and to bring fairness — reopen the government and bring fairness to the American people under Obamacare. It's as simple as that. But it all has to begin with a simple discussion.

Boehner seized his opportunity when The Wall Street Journal quoted "a senior administration official" boasting "We are winning. ... It doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because what matters is the end result."

This isn't some damn game.  The Speaker should have spoken to Kentucky's junior Repub Senator, Rand Paul,  who yesterday had a brief conversation with the state's senior Senator. Rand Paul was picked up on an open microphone maintaining “I think if we keep saying, ‘We wanted to defund it. We fought for that and now we’re willing to compromise on this’, I think they can’t, we’re gonna, I think, well I know we don’t want to be here, but we’re gonna win this, I think.”

There are individuals on both sides who are determined they turn a government shutdown to their political advantage.  They are, after all, called politicians and, it is said, politics ain't beanbag.

But one side, and one Party alone, turned a routine rise in the debt ceiling in 2011 into a political football in which Democrats ended up accepting budget numbers very close to the ones extremist Paul Ryan (R-WI) had proposed.  President Obama having erred by negotiating on the debt ceiling two years ago, the radicals are back.

And chief among them is John Boehner.  While Ted Cruz receives the opprobrium of the left, center, and even some Republicans for demanding the federal government cease operations unless the Affordable Care Act is crippled, Speaker Boehner has led his caucus to rejection of the clean continuing resolutions which have passed the Senate and  has chosen the debt ceiling as his target. For that, he is praised by the mainstream, many Democrats as well as the media, as a "moderate."

President Obama recognizes "the only thing that is preventing (the federal government from reopening) all that from happening right now, today, in the next five minutes is that Speaker John Boehner won't even let the bill get a yes or no vote because he doesn't want to anger the extremists in his party,"  That is self-evident.  But given the Speaker's penchant for gimmicks, Boehner had to be called out, and Harry Reid has done it.    The Senate Majority Leader reportedly privately has called Boehner a "coward," which apparently has upset the latter.  So at a press conference (video below) Friday, Reid implored the Speaker to "let the House stop these irresponsible, reckless games and just re-open the government."  He noted Boehner

single-handedly is keeping the government shut. Some recent stories have even suggested the Spaeker is keeping the government shut because I hurt his feelings. That's true. I'm sorry I hurt his feelings but we shouldn't take it out on (public employees)...

We shouldn't be dysfunctional government.  There is no reason to be except for one man. That's Speaker Boehner (who) does not have the courage to stand up to that small band of anarchists.

Sometimes the truth hurts, and this may have hurt even some liberals.  The American Prospect's Paul Waldman argues what "Reid should be doing is giving John Boehner a little space (because) right now, the country is waiting for Boehner to muster the courage to allow the clean CR, and Democrats shouldn't do anything that's bound to make him dig in his heels."

But that is a role better suited to the Compromiser-In-Chief in the White House.  And if Harry Reid's remarks are offensive to Boehner and uncomfortable for Obama, the President can tell the Speaker: "Take your pick. You can deal with me or you can deal with a real Democrat." Good cop, bad cop is a game- and that's something John Boehner relates to.

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Calm Down, GOP: You Have A Friend In High Places


Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, Louis CK, Jon Stewart, Wanda Sykes, Jim Carrey (especially Jim Carrey) had nothing on Winston Churchill, if legend bears any resemblance to reality. One of the Prime Minister's most famous witticisms reputedly came about thusly:

Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?" 
Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "
Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"
Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!" 
Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price”

This is somewhat analogous to the budgetary machinations going on in Washington these days. (Or maybe I simply wanted an excuse to repeat the story.)

A few hours before the federal government closed, President Obama during an interview with NPR was

asked if that opportunity to avoid a shutdown exists, what was he willing to offer.

"Steve when you say what can I offer? I shouldn't have to offer anything," Obama said. "They're not doing me a favor by paying for things that they have already approved for the government to do. That's part of their basic function of government; that's not doing me a favor. That's doing what the American people sent them here to do, carrying out their responsibilities.

"I have said consistently that I'm always happy to talk to Republicans and Democrats about how we shape a budget that is investing in things like early childhood education, rebuilding our roads and bridges and putting people back to work, growing our economy, making sure that we have the research and development to stay at the cutting edge and that deals with some of our long-term debt issues. But we're not going to accomplish those things if one party to this conversation says that the only way that they come to the table is if they get 100 percent of what they want and if they don't, they threaten to burn down the house."

Both the media and most of us Americans tend to digest the music, rather than the lyrics, of any comment made by the President of the United States.  This is no less true for Barack Obama, who is here noting that Congress must pay for the programs it authorizes and that the GOP thus bears the responsibility to do the right thing and approve a resolution keeping government functioning.

But he is, contrary to assumptions of both the Democratic faithful, and of Repubs who allege that the President won't negotiate, saying no more than that.

We're not going to accomplish those things if one party to this conversation says that the only way that they come to the table is if they get 100 percent of what they want and if they don't, they threaten to burn down the house.  Literally, Obama did not say the GOP is out of luck, merely that they won't get everything.

Republicans won't get a fundamental restructuring of the Affordable Care Act, nor a one-year delay in its implementation.  Without health-care reform, the President understands, he has little legacy. He has brought us out of the recession, but other Presidents have steered the nation out of recession, and the economy remains weak.  He issued the order to capture Osama bin Laden, but historians may record the terrorist's demise as a triumph more of Seal Team 6 or of the military generally.  And he has terminated American involvement in one war and nearly another, but ending two wars the nation lost does not get an ex-President within a thousand miles of Mount Rushmore.

The Affordable Care Act is President Obama's signature achievement and even if delaying it were beneficial (which it is not) to the nation, such a move would diminish its value to the reputation of the 44th President.

But other actions undermining the social safety net, though arguably even more damaging to the American people, probably would not have as deleterious an impact on Obama's standing with historians. Some might even meet with hardy approval of most members of the mainstream media, most of whom are burdened with jobs whose lack of physical rigor will enable them to work well into their 70s.  At the Business Roundtable on September 18, President Obama remarked

So here’s where we are -- and I think this is the bottom line, and I want to make sure everybody is clear here.  I have presented a budget that deals with -- continues to deal with our deficit effectively.  I am prepared to work with Democrats and Republicans to deal with our long-term entitlement issues.  And I am prepared to look at priorities that the Republicans think we should be promoting and priorities that they think we should be  -- we shouldn’t be promoting.  So I’m happy to negotiate with them around the budget, just as I’ve done in the past.

What I will not do is to create a habit, a pattern, whereby the full faith and credit of the United States ends up being a bargaining chip to set policy.  It’s irresponsible.  The last time we did this in 2011, we had negative growth at a time when the recovery was just trying to take off.  And it would fundamentally change how American government functions.

The understated President noted using the full faith and credit of the USA as "a bargaining chip to set policy" is "irresponsible." (Appalling, reprehensible, and unpatriotic he might also have mentioned.)  Nonetheless, he didn't definitively state that he would not negotiate over this, merely that he will not help "create a habit, a pattern."

That may be nitpicking.  Not so, though, that the president is still obsessed with the deficit. In an economy stuck in second degree, he explains that he has "presented a budget that deals with- continues to deal with our deficit effectively."  And he assures the Big Money Boyz he is "prepared to work with Democrats and Republicans to deal with our long-term entitlement issues."  While Frank Luntz has taught Repubs to speak of cuts in Medicare and Social Security as "entitlement reform," Obama uses the less pithy "deal with our long-term entitlement issues."

Digby recognizes "He's right about not creating a habit or a pattern of bargaining with the debt ceiling. This is simply unsustainable. But once he says he'll deal, and they agree to take what he's offering, it's just a matter of timing the announcement isn't it? "   Churchill might have said "We've already established who will pay for the sins of a political system controlled by the forces of wealth.  Now we are haggling about the price."


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Profile In Something


Peter Drucker of the mainstream, but conservative, Washington Examiner reported Tuesday

House Republicans who opposed the defunding of Obamacare are beginning to speak out and are threatening to withdraw their support for the strategy if the government shutdown persists.

The growing group of lawmakers was publicly silent until now, voicing concerns privately only to their GOP colleagues while publicly rallying around the proposal, in part, to ensure the GOP caucus maintained a united front. With the government now closed and Democrats refusing to negotiate any changes to Obamacare, these Republicans are saying flatly that they've had it.

The tipping point for these Republicans came Monday, when Senate Democrats rejected for the third time a House Republican proposal to keep the government open while slowing down Obamacare. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., labeled as "lemmings" fellow Republicans who continued to use the threat of a government shutdown to stall Obamacare even after it was clear it wouldn't work.

The previous day, Aviva Shen of Think Progress, an arm of the Obamite Center for American Progress, had written

With hours left to pass a continuing resolution before the government shuts down, an overwhelming majority of Republicans may in fact be open to a “clean” bill that does not attempt to delay or defund Obamacare. Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports that just 30 radical House Republicans are responsible for keeping the doomed Obamacare fight alive.

Some 20 or 30 are somewhat less committed and would be willing to compromise, except out of fear of retaliation from their party. The remaining 175, York estimates, would support a continuing resolution without any Obamacare provisions. “If Boehner offers them a “clean” continuing resolution, they will vote for it,” York writes.

Yet House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has thus far refused to bring the bill to a floor vote. Besides a few exceptions, Boehner has clung to the so-called Hastert Rule, rarely calling a floor vote unless it can pass with 217 Republican votes.

The 30 radicals driving the GOP’s brinkmanship include Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-TX). These lawmakers say they will do anything necessary to take a stand against Obamacare — even though shutting down the government will not actually delay the law’s implementation.

In the Senate, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have alienated virtually all of their colleagues in their fruitless crusade against Obamacare. An aide to Lee proudly stated, “The minority of the minority is going to run things until our leadership gets some backbone.”

Moderate House Republicans were rumored to be planning a revolt against the latest bill, which includes a one year delay of Obamacare. Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who has been outspoken against tying Obamacare to a government shutdown, said late Monday he and 25 others would try to keep the bill from coming to a floor vote, but apparently could not get the votes. By ThinkProgress’ count, 49 Republicans have come out publicly against their party’s shutdown tactics.

Unfortunately, of those 49 cited by Think Progress, only eleven are U.S. Representatives and 16 are U.S. Senators.  The remaining 22 are what were termed "old school conservatives" and "conservative pundits." Sadly, they don't get a vote- though if they did, it probably wouldn't matter.  Apparently, only five of the eleven Repub members of the House were sufficiently exorcised by their party's tactics to join New York's Peter King in voting against the Speaker's version of the continuing resolution.   Not much of a revolt.

The reality is far darker and disturbing.  The National Review's Robert Costa found

Instead, the leadership is digging in for an extended impasse with Senate Democrats. Based on my latest conversations with insiders, their plan isn’t to eventually whip Republicans toward a clean CR and back down after a few days of messaging the shutdown, as some have believed; it’s to keep fighting, and, in the process, preserve the House GOP’s fragile unity — and maybe, if they’re lucky, win a concession from Senate majority leader Harry Reid.

But that unity, more than anything, is critical for Boehner, especially as the debt limit nears. Per his allies, his fear is, if he brings up a clean CR, he’d be seen as conceding to Reid, who’s seen as the villain of villains within the House GOP. Thirty to forty conservatives would likely revolt against such a maneuver, and so would their backers in the conservative movement. In the press, he’d likely be cheered for a profile in courage; within the House, the decision would be seen by his critics on the right as a betrayal of the highest order. There is nothing they detest more than the idea of caving, and Boehner knows that.

Instead of risking being cheered for being "a profile in courage," however, Boehner has opted to be a profile in cowardice.  There is overwhelming Democratic support in the House for the "clean" continuing resolution. As President Obama recognizes, even with the GOP majority in the House, only a few Republicans would be needed for approval of a "clean" continuing resolution (which has passed the Senate) in the House, given overwhelming Democratic support.

So if John Boehner decided he doesn't want the government to stay shut down, he could get it done, and would sacrifice at most his exalted position.   Steve M. has remarked

John Boehner? Why does his desire to cling to his speakership supersede the needs of the country? If he genuinely thinks the crazy caucus is leading the country to a cataclysm, why shouldn't he sacrifice his damn speakership and do what's patriotic, suspending the Hastert "rule" (which is just self-imposed and isn't a rule at all) and getting a continuing resolution and debt ceiling increase passed with Democratic and sane Republican votes? What does he lose if he's deposed, besides power -- which, as is obvious by now, is not something he has much of?

If I'm let go in a wave of "belt-tightening" or "restructuring," I'm unemployed. If Boehner's deposed, he can keep his seat in Congress. And if he retires in disgrace, so what? The world of corporate boards and lobbying and fees per speech that would be a nice annual salary for a normal person will open up to him. Plus, as a congressman with a 22-year career, he'll have a lovely pension and health insurance and retirement account. Hell, he's 63 -- he can start collecting Social Security.

But if he did the right thing, he would seriously endanger his position as Speaker of the House. Given the choice between country and power, John Boehner has made his choice quite clear.

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Low, Low, Lower Still

Politico reports Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remarked of the House of Representatives

They try to send us something back, they’re spinning their wheels. We are not going to change Obamacare. Our negotiation is over with and I’ve said for two weeks:They should pass a CR. They are closing down the government, I don’t know what in the world is wrong with them.

Reid might have said: "I know what is wrong with them. They want to crash the nation's economy."   Or at least House Speaker Boehner does.  Chris Christie contends, with his signature tough guy expression,  "No matter where the partisanship is, the failure is in people not bringing people together to get it done." He did not consult Boehner, who at a fund raiser in Idaho five weeks ago said of resisting raising the debt limit

The president doesn’t think this is fair, thinks I’m being difficult to deal with. But I’ll say this: It may be unfair, but what I’m trying to do here is to leverage the political process to produce more change than what it would produce if left to its own devices. We’re going to have a whale of a fight.

And that lust for "a whale of a fight" comes not from the far, far right but the guy who is portrayed as the Responsible Republican, who was reluctant to shut down the government but is anxious to default and send the American economy into a tailspin.  The dangerous Republicans, we are led to believe, are the likes of Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, who may be sufficiently Machiavellian that Suzy Khimm Friday speculated

The House’s meltdown in July seemed to suggest that Senate Democrats might be able to make some headway in raising spending and undoing sequestration cuts. But in the following weeks, Republicans instead turned the budget debate into a quest to defund Obamacare—a campaign that conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz led, but which House Speaker John Boehner ultimately enabled by attaching defunding to the stopgap budget.

The result has been a battle for the soul of the GOP, as Republicans have turned fiscal deadlines into bargaining chips–a tactic that threatens to imperil the U.S. economy and American credibility in the global marketplace. The fight has also taken all the attention off the budget itself, where the absence of debate threatens to turn sequestration into the new normal.

Most Democrats have grudgingly agreed to six more weeks of funding under 2013 sequestration levels, which the Senate-passed budget preserved on Friday—and that would their best-case scenario at this point. Not everyone is thrilled, but in comparison to altering Obamacare, shutting down the government, or negotiating over the debt ceiling, it is the bare minimum that Congress can and must do, President Obama stressed on Friday.

“My message to Congress is this: Do not shut down the government, do not shut down the economy,” the president said. “Pass a budget on time. Pay our bills on time.”

But whether intentionally or not, it could ultimately help Republicans shift the goalposts in terms of the actual 2014 budget, some Democrats fear. “One could say it is a great bait and switch. We’re talking about Obamacare, which really has no place in this debate at all. In the meantime, they’re giving us a very low number—they’re enshrining sequestration,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat. “The Senate number, which is $70 billion higher, that would be the old Ryan budget number, which we used to say was terrible. Now if only we could get that high.”

“I believe we are going to see sequestration made permanent, and I believe quite frankly that’s where so many in the Republican ranks want to go,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. The fight over Obamacare is ”a sideshow to where we go on sequestration.”

GOP calls for "compromise" would be Democrats compromising from a compromise from a compromise.   As the chart below indicates, the "liberal," Senate, resolution is lower than the 2014 Senate Budget,which in turn is lower than the original, punitive budget from Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI).  Senate Democrats have gone beyond 10% below the original Ryan budget.

But these are annoying, inconvenient details.  There being a God, the Repub Party probably will be more harmed politically than the Democratic Party because the federal government has shut down.  But in a classic program of disinformation, Republicans call out for the President to negotiate and there is little chance the traditional media will explain how spurious an argument that really is.

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