Shutdown Backlash Fractures Conservative Obamacare Strategy

We would not be seeing this if conservatives has learned the lessons of the last attempt to shut down the government:

Under attack for the government shutdown, some of the most vocal elements of the conservative wing of the Republican Party are publicly splintering, a sign of growing concerns among even hard-core conservatives that the defeat-health-care-at-any-cost strategy may have backfired.

The dispute centers on the best way to oppose President Obama’s health care plan: to immediately try to bring it down by blocking any federal budget deal that includes funding for it, or to gradually build public opposition until Congress and the White House are controlled by elected officials willing to repeal the law.

On Thursday, the divisions were on display as conservative groups like the Heritage Action for America said they would not fight a short-term increase in the debt ceiling while Americans for Prosperity insisted just a few days ago that any increase be tied to cuts in social programs.

Their actions followed an unusual public statement on Wednesday by the Koch Companies, the conglomerate controlled by the billionaire conservative brothers Charles and David Koch, who sent a letter to the Senate stating that they did not support the effort led by Heritage Action to force the partial closing of federal government as a way to eliminate funding for the health care program.

“We want to set the record straight and correct this misinformation,” the letter said.

The conflicting opinions, which had been kept mostly private for months as the budget conflict in Washington escalated, reflect a growing fear that the Republicans will be blamed for fallout from the government shutdown without anything to show for it.

Does anyone get the feeling that if the leadership of the various flavors of American conservatism didn’t live in their own media feedback loop, this mess never would have happened? And is it any surprise that this mess is happening just as new poll numbers indicate the GOP could lose their majority in the House of Representatives?

A new survey of voters in a dozen Republican-held districts indicates that the government shutdown has made the House increasingly vulnerable to a Democratic takeover.

Polling in the districts, conducted by the liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling and paid for by MoveOn.org, follows similar polling that found voters hostile to lawmakers supporting the shutdown.

Democrats need a net increase of 17 seats to retake control of the lower chamber, and the prior polling found 17 Republicans trailing generic Democratic opponents before voters were told they had supported the shutdown. After they were told — which a Democratic challenger would waste no time doing while campaigning — another four Republicans fell behind.

In the latest survey, based on a dozen Republicans, five trail Democrats and another is tied. Once voters were told the Republican supported the shutdown, another three fell behind the Democrat.

Of the 36 Republican-controlled districts where voters were surveyed by PPP, 29 of them could flip — more than enough to give control of the chamber to Democrats.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.