Apparently the polls for Republicans are so bad that even Republican pollsters think they could be facing a disaster of biblical, wrath-of-God proportions.
GOP pollster Bill McInturff writes clients on this week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: “Overall, this is among the handful of surveys that stand out in my career as being significant and consequential, so, I wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to review the survey.”
“I would also say this about my general experience with this type of data – 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Lehman collapse, debt ceiling in 2011 – once there is this level of movement and change, it takes months for things to settle down in a way that is stable and easier to understand. This type of data creates ripples that will take a long time to resolve and there will be unexpected changes we cannot predict at the moment as a consequence.”
It’s also possible that by this time next year most folks will have moved on. But it’s not like they weren’t warned. See also the dread pirate mistermix, who points to polls suggesting some of the gerrymandered “GOP forever” congressional districts are getting wobbly.
Writing at Washington Monthly, Martin “Booman” Longman says that the Dems are holding all the cards.
Because the Republicans (in the leadership, anyway) are not actually willing to default on our debts, the end game here is that time runs out and Congress raises the debt ceiling. Whether they can get some kind of fig leaf to cover their defeat or not, they can stop making demands now because the most important thing to the president is to put an end to these kind of hostage negotiations….
… Admittedly, the Senate Republicans’ filibuster of Harry Reid’s motion to proceed to a vote on extending the debt ceiling will make some people nervous, but there is no reason to be nervous. There is virtually zero chance that the country is going to default. In fact, the Democrats have such an immense advantage right now that they are actually in a position to hold the Republicans hostage. With the clock clicking down, John Boehner will be desperate when he eventually realizes that his options are exhausted and he needs Democratic votes to avoid causing a global economic calamity.
There is virtually zero chance that the country is going to default
I wouldn’t be so bold as to make that claim. For some of the sick minds among the baggers the prospect of creating a default is on par with finding deeper satisfaction through auto-erotic asphyxiation. Sometimes you cross the point of no return when you’ve pushed it too far.
When you’ve got a bunch of baggers who are overly focused on their own immediate self preservation and dedication to their cause, you’ve got a situation that offers zero chances of assured predictability. We’re looking at a reaching for the pillars mentality.
I don’t believe for a minute the right not only doesn’t WANT the nation to default but they would love to be the ones to say they took us there. I am not sure what booman is basing his story on unless he knows something we don’t.
Maybe….just maybe they extend it for 6 weeks but then we are right back where we started just in time to make people afraid of holiday shopping. So what the hell good will that do?
And as for the shut down, if the right cared about polls the government would already BE back open, so there really is no end game there and pretty soon the pain that inflicts will become more widespread…but anything shy of waving a white flag on ACA , which we know the right WONT do I don’t see how the government re opens,,, and if that is the case why not lock the doors at the congress and senate buildings and turn off the lights? Talk about a waste of money. Why heat and cool these places or have lights? GO HOME and don’t come back until your ready to pass a clean CR.
“Whether they can get some kind of fig leaf to cover their defeat or not…”
NOT!!!
If/when – and I sure hope it’s a when, and not an if – Boehner folds and allows an “Up or Down Vote” (where, oh where have I heard that phrase before?) – NO COVER!!!!!
And certainly not so much as a fig leaf!
Hell, I wouldn’t give them the cover that a piece of dander off a dust-mites nut-sack would give them!
It’s also possible that by this time next year most folks will have moved on.
Well, whatever we move on to is going to make the Republicans look at least as bad, and probably worse. There are a number of pressing issues that really need to be dealt with–gun violence, immigration, climate change, etc.–and they’re the ones who are blocking everything. Every which way you turn you see Republican obstruction.
In a way they’re actually lucky that the last two Big Things have been Syria and now the current debt and budget nonsense, which give them fewer opportunities to display their paranoia and bigotry. But now, for instance, just consider the barrage of misogyny we’re about to be subjected to with Wendy Davis running in Texas. And then we’ve got Eric Holder challenging their neo-Jim Crow laws, and then we’re eventually going to have to start talking about immigration again.
I dream of a Republican wipeout on the scale of Canada’s Conservative Party in 1993, where they went from 170 parliamentary seats down to just 2, as their vote share plunged from 43% to 16%.