GOP: Don’t give Obama the shutdown he desperately wants

This is a very vexing issue and I understand the sentiments of some conservatives who want to hold out for 61 billion in spending cuts. I fully appreciate the line of thinking that says if we can’t fight for 61 billion, how can we get the trillions in spending America needs?

I get it!

However, Obama’s approval rating is at an all time low of 42%. I believe he rooting for a shutdown for the opportunity to demagogue his numbers up with the help of the media. Strategically, it’s more important to deny the president that opportunity, so it’s better to cut a deal and not shutdown and declare victory!

Obama is on his death bed, politically. He won’t get bump if a shutdown is averted. And he’ll unhappy if the shutdown doesn’t happen. Keeping him unhappy is better for the conservative cause.

The Caucus asks, “Are Republicans ready to declare victory in the shutdown showdown and move on?”

For days, the assumption has been that Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio was dug into his hardened position on behalf of the conservatives in his House caucus and from socially conservative voices in the Republican Party.

But now — just hours before the first government shutdown in 15 years –some of the most vocal conservatives are urging Republicans to reach a deal before a shutdown occurs. That could give Mr. Boehner the political cover he needs to cut a deal with President Obama and the Democrats.

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the founder of the Tea Party caucus in the House and a likely 2012 presidential candidate, wrote on Friday afternoon in a Twitter message: “I am ready for a big fight that will change the arc of history. The current fight in Washington is not that fight.”
In an article on Redstate, Ms. Bachmann concluded that “the current battle has devolved to an agenda that is almost too limited to warrant the kind of fighting that we’re now seeing in Washington.”

Likewise, Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a possible presidential candidate, said Friday afternoon in an interview with Fox Business News that a shutdown would “hurt the Republicans, not the Democrats.”

Mr. Huckabee, who was a favorite of religious conservatives during his 2008 presidential campaign, said: “Nobody’s more pro-life than me. Nobody. But as much as I want to see Planned Parenthood defunded, as much as I want to see NPR lose their funding, the reality is the president and the Senate are never going to go along with that. So win the deal you can win and live to fight another day.”

Publicly at least, Ms. Bachmann and Mr. Huckabee are sending a message to Mr. Boehner that they fear voters will blame Republicans, and not President Obama, if a shutdown occurs. That message could help convince Mr. Boehner and the Republican budget negotiators to concede on some of the remaining issues.
Others have chimed in, too. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, one of the more conservative Republicans in the Senate, told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Republicans should “probably” give up on the policy “riders” that have been holding up negotiations.

More details here

Memeorandum