All of the pundits are predicting that Republicans in the Senate will blink and approve the continued funding of ObamaCare. They may be right, based on the past performance of RINOs like John McCain and Lindsey Graham. It is definitely true that the main stream media is working overtime to make that happen. But there are reasons to question whether the conventional wisdom will work this time.
There has been a recent and dramatic change within the Republican leadership. The most obvious change is with John Boehner, but there has also been an observable change in Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy. Even the Washington Post noticed:
Up until now, the Republican leadership has been terrified that Republicans will get blamed for any shut down of the government. At times it seemed like Cruz was the only one who believed that defunding ObamaCare was even possible. Following is a link to an article about this in August:
I’m convinced that if we don’t stand and fight now, we never will, if we don’t stand and defund Obamacare today, we are saying that we surrender, and Obamacare will be a permanent feature of our economy going forward. And so the question I ask to those friends of ours in the Senate and the House who are concerned about fighting on the Continuing Resolution, the simple question is, what is the alternative? What is the alternative to actually defeat Obamacare, not to speak about it, not to give a press release, but to stop it? Because if its right that once the subsidies kick in, this ain’t ever going away, I have yet to see any other alternative that has any prospect whatsoever of prevailing.
Ted Cruz argued that if Republicans vote to fund every element of the government, except ObamaCare Democrats will be the ones who shut down the government. John McCain was too busy bad mouthing Cruz to realize that he had a point.
It is quite possible that Republicans in the senate will cave, as they usually do and vote to fund ObamaCare. That does not mean that the problem ends there. The Senate cannot fund ObamaCare unless the House agrees. We just may be headed toward a showdown and it is far from clear that House Republicans are going to back down. For the first time, thanks to leaders like Ted Cruz, Republicans are learning to play hardball. It appears as though they are going to do something remarkable. They are going to keep sending single issue spending bills to the Senate and ultimately to the President. Just think about the reality of this. Suppose they send a bill to fund Social Security checks, but nothing else. Will Harry Reid dare block that? Will Obama dare veto it? How exactly will Harry Reid respond if Republicans keep sending him clean bills, funding those parts of the government that are not in dispute, but never including one dime for ObamaCare. How about a bill to fund Medicare or to pay our military. Don’t assume that Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate are the only side of this war with any ammunition.
While left is licking its chops with firm belief that Democrats win this argument, they may be very wrong. This is not 1995 and the liberal left no longer controls how the American people think. The days when the New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS, ABC and NBC were able to control public opinion are just a distant memory. While the liberal left still believes, the majority of Americans have already moved on.
Obama has lost all credibility as a leader. The most important decision a President ever makes is the decision to go to war. President Obama announced that our national security was at risk in Syria and that he had made the decision to use military force. But he didn’t actually authorize the use of force, instead he asked congress to approve the use of force. Then, incredibly, Obama asked for prime time to ask congress to delay voting to authorize force because his BFF, Vladimir Putin, was going to talk Syria out of its chemical weapons. This is beyond pathetic.
There are only two possibilities here, both bad. One is that President Obama really believed our national security was at stake, but he chose to back down. The other is that he brought us to the brink of war, without just cause. In either case, when Obama blinked he lost all credibility as a leader. Republicans know this and that is part of the reason they are willing to challenge him.
Just a few weeks ago, it seemed unlikely that there would even be a vote in the House to defund ObamaCare. The smart money was that Boehner would by-pass Republicans and use a combination of Democrats and Republicans to pass compromise legislation to continue funding the government. The liberal media was gloating about the disarray in the Republican Party.
There are already signs that at least some Republicans in the Senate are reluctantly supporting Ted Cruz. There is no doubt that some republicans, particularly John McCain, despise Cruz. But, they despise Harry Reid more. In addition, even RINOs can read political polls and it turns out Ted Cruz has struck a chord with the American people.
Finally, even if Cruz loses, he will still win. The reason he will win is that ObamaCare is a train wreck and nothing is going to change that. It is fatally flawed, with or without any help from republicans. Democrats were primarily responsible for the meltdown caused by the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, yet they were successful in blaming this on Bush. This time, if Republicans stand with Ted Cruz and try to stop ObamaCare, Democrats will own the consequences of ObamaCare lock, stock and barrel. I am firmly convinced that if ObamaCare is funded that one year from today Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, will be desperately trying to distance themselves from the backlash.
So if Ted Cruz is right and he is able to stop ObamaCare, he wins, the American people win and Obama loses. Yet if he loses and he is unable to stop ObamaCare, he will ultimately score an even greater victory because the stench of failure will be too powerful to ignore.
I cannot possibly predict how this with turn out, but I do know this. Obama blinked and we are on the blink of a major change in the political landscape of this country.
TDM