A good place to start this review would be with the elected conservatives who met on Capitol Hill today. On one side of the table were Washington Republicans who ignorantly followed a self-serving freshman senator over the cliff straight into a government shutdown without an exit strategy. Despite warnings from the Wall Street Journal, Charles Krauthammer, Scott Walker and myself, they charged straight into enemy gunfire and woke up the morning after in a ditch with a 28 percent approval rating. For those trying to minimize the damage caused by the Ted Cruz strategy, Gallup pollsters report today that the GOP number is the lowest any party has received since they began asking voters a question about party approval 21 years ago.

On the other side of the meeting table today on the Hill was the governor of a state that Barack Obama carried by 18 points just last year. Less than a year later, New Jersey’s Republican governor enjoys a gaudy approval rating and a 33-point lead over his Democratic challenger in a state that has gone Democratic in every presidential election following 1988. Chris Christie’s lead represents a 41 percent swing in the Republican Party’s fortunes since last year’s presidential election. Christie’s 68 percent approval rating in a dark blue state is also 40 points higher than the GOP’s approval rating nationwide.