As I began my daily perusal of the news for blog fodder today I was immediately presented with three different stories about a potential government shutdown and what it means, or does not mean, for the newly empowered Republicans. Another fourteen or so seconds of effort brought me to all the dire warning stories that were written yesterday.
Almost every one of these articles begin with the premise that last year’s shutdown was a disaster.
Top Republicans say two things are clear: Last year’s government shutdown hurt the party. And Republicans must not let the president’s pending immigration action bait them into a repeat.
Even if they get around to presenting some opposing views, that is the seed that is first planted. The New York Times kicked off a piece by letting its readers know that the even nefarious Koch brothers don’t want another shutdown.
Matt Lewis at The Daily Caller weighed in from the right-ish side of the aisle to say that just because the Republicans had a big election night this year doesn’t mean that the shutdown didn’t hurt them last year.
The latter seems absurd. And I also reject the former. Suggesting the GOP’s success in November of 2014 means that they weren’t in danger in October of 2013 strikes me as a bit of revisionist history. Think about all the many scandals and controversies that have happened since the shutdown. As I implied above, the botched Obamacare website rollout wasn’t even realized/appreciated until after shutdown ended. Think about what we were talking about in the days and weeks leading up to the midterms — Ebola and ISIS.
The fact that the patient survived 13 months after the virus does not indicate that the patient wasn’t incredibly ill at the time. The expectation that anything would dog Republicans for more than a year seems a pretty high bar. With the pace of today’s news cycle, the notion that any one story would dominate 13 months later would always be highly unlikely.
Lewis was one of a very small number of people (I can’t even recall any others at the moment) who claimed last year that the shutdown could hurt the Republican brand and they could still win the Senate. Most warnings from inside the GOP were of the “sky is falling and it will cost us next year” variety.
When measured against the most common warnings that it would prevent the GOP from retaking the Senate, the shutdown was a paper cut on the Republican brand.
We’ll save the discussion about exactly what shape the Republican brand is in and whether it can be “damaged” more in the eyes of the leftist media hacks for another day.
As for the current rush of hysteria about the potential of another shutdown there is only one thing anybody needs to focus on: whenever the media is expressing concern for the GOP on any issue, it certainly isn’t because they are afraid it will be detrimental. The opposite is usually true.
The MSM Obama sycophants aren’t afraid of a shutdown threat because it will be bad for Republicans, they’re afraid of slowing down The Idiot King’s executive order fetish.
Because that’s all they have left to impose their will and there isn’t any time to waste .
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