“…Through the online ads and the multi-state tour, Tea Party Patriots and For America will accuse such senators of supporting the law if they vote for a budget or a continuing resolution that includes money for Obamacare.”

Contra these organizations and Marco Rubio’s overheated rhetoric, opposing an ill-fated anti-Obamacare tactic does not make someone a “supporter” of the law. That’s unfair, unhelpful demagoguery. I’ve written about this dispute on several occasions and have made my position clear. Like many conservatives, I have a respectful difference of opinion with the Cruz/Rubio/Lee effort to use the looming Continuing Resolution debate (and its implicit threat of government “shutdown”) as the leverage point to try to defund the so-called Affordable Care Act. In a nutshell, the Democratic Senate simply will not pass a CR that excludes some or all Obamacare funding, and the president would veto any such legislation anyway. Indeed, Democrats are positively giddy over the prospect of this fight. As with the fiscal cliff (but unlike the sequester) the law is on their side. They win by trodding the path of least resistance. Not only do Republican attempts to strip the law of funding have no chance of succeeding, they would also hand the Left a golden opportunity to conflate (popular) Obamacare opposition with (unpopular) government shutdown.