The Republican establishment is convinced that Republicans made two huge mistakes.  The first was when they shut down the government in a showdown with Bill Clinton.  The second was when they shut down the government in a showdown with Barack Obama.  In both cases the wiser heads said Republicans lost more than they gained. That is true, if the only measurement is the reporting by the main stream media.  But a closer looks reveals very different results.

The Clinton shutdown happened in 1995. Some “experts” have blamed the defeat of Bob Dole on this shutdown. However I remember that election and Bob Dole ran one of the worst campaigns in modern history. At times it was difficult to detect a pulse. When is the last time you heard someone say: “I really wish Bob Dole had won?” Exactly! The rest of the Republicans did quite well, in spite of Clinton’s re-election.  They only lost two seats in the House, maintained the majority and actually gained two Senate seats.  In addition, the shutdown resulted in the 1997 balanced budget agreement. For the next four years Bill Clinton signed a balanced budget.  Hillary Clinton is campaigning today on the balanced budgets signed by Bill Clinton.  But those budgets only happened because Republicans literally made Clinton do it. Incredibly the main stream media gave Clinton the credit for doing something Republicans forced him to do under protest.

Once again the conventional wisdom is that shutting down the government last fall was a huge mistake. However a lot of those new Republicans in congress got there with the promise to stop Obama. Is that a coincidence? At the time of the shutdown I literally texted Fox News and Brett Baer read my text on the air. I wrote that Democrats were the big losers because the shutdown forced them to go all in on ObamaCare. ObamaCare was already a problem for Democrats, but by allowing the government to be shutdown rather than to even consider any amendments, Democrats showed their true colors. Those Republicans who ran against ObamaCare are now awaiting their new offices in congress. Those establishment Republicans in supposed tight elections used opposition to ObamaCare to get back in the race.

It sure looks like the 2013 shutdown of the government was a major factor in the 2014 Republican wave.  It is quite simple. One of the reasons people are fed up with Republicans is that they don’t appear to be willing to pay the price to stop Obama. The government shutdown showed them that there are at least some Republicans with a spine and the voters just send congress a lot more of them.  The establishment Republicans only squeaked by when they promised to grow a spine too. Every Republican Governor who stood up to the liberal media and the public sector unions won election by big margins. Scot Walker, who the Democrats vowed to destroy and who the main stream media reported was in big trouble, won again, and again and again.

Republicans have a historic opportunity, unless they listen to the Republican establishment that remains terrified of criticism in the main stream media. Fortunately for all of us, Obama is stupidly making it nearly impossible for establishment Republicans to compromise with him on any issue. The Republican establishment is not all that smart, but the easiest strategy on earth is to just oppose Obama on everything. The odds of success using that strategy are extremely high.

TDM