Little support for the Tea Party ‘shutdown caucus’

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I am going to break my rule about never referring to anything that Jennifer Rubin writes at the Washington Post because her latest post exposes the fact that the Tea Party Senators, whom the Beltway media villagers incessantly speculate about as "contenders" for the 2016 GOP nomination, have little or no support among their colleagues, and even a conservative hack like Jennifer Rubin has grown tired of them. The GOP’s immature ‘shutdown caucus’:

For days now, Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Mike Lee (Utah), Ted Cruz
(Tex.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) have been trying to convince us that the
threat to shut down the government unless Obamacare is “defunded” (which isn’t even possible
since the bulk of the monies are not tied to the annual discretionary
budget) is serious. But of course it isn’t — not as long as President
Obama is in the White House, Democrats have the Senate majority and/or
sanity prevails in the House.

Now the shutdown caucus confesses they don’t even have GOP support.
Lee sends out a fundraising e-mail wailing that he “can’t defund
Obamacare without you.” (So send money!)

Cruz concedes,
“Right now, we don’t have the votes. We don’t have the votes in the
House. We don’t have the votes in the Senate,” Cruz said at the
gathering of Young Americans for Liberty. “I’m going to be perfectly candid, we can’t
win this fight. Mike Lee can’t win this fight, I can’t win this fight,
Rand Paul can’t win this fight. No Washington politician can win this
fight. . . "

This is a shopworn tactic: Stake out a ludicrous position, insist you
are serious and then blame other pols (the sober ones) or even the
public when the whole thing collapses. Really, do they imagine voters
are so dim as to not realize this is purely an exercise in
self-promotion and a fundraising technique?

Meanwhile, Rubio plugs along, trying his best to maintain his sincerity. His argument is attractively simplistic but illogical: Obamacare is bad. September is the best time to stop it. We will threaten to shut down the government to do it. (He is so sincere you wonder if he is actually hopelessly naïve.)

* * *

And of course, Rubio and his colleagues can’t get what they want
(even if other Republicans jump off the cliff with them and even by
threatening to shut down the government). Obama will simply say no.

This is not an advertisement for mature leadership. That is why other GOP senators and House leadership is remaining mum.

Of course, the losers among the Beltway media villagers will continue incessantly speculating about the presidential prospects of these Tea Party losers. They see in them a reflection of themselves, a sort of perverse narcissism.