But even though the House GOP has effectively been sidelined from the final stage negotiations for now, there are still many tea partiers in the Republican conference who are stacking up a couple of terrible polls and attacks from moderates against what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called both a divine and patriotic calling at the Values Voters summit on Friday.

Ask White House officials whether the president and his aides are ready for another showdown, and the answer is that they think Republicans are less likely to go that route again, given the way this one turned out. But ask Cruz whether he’s comfortable with more shutdown and debt limit standoffs and he says the answer depends on whether Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) start going along with what he and the House GOP want.

“I don’t see this discussion going away. I don’t see how it can go away,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Sen. Budget Committee…

That’s the kind of thing reinvigorated Democrats think their opponents still have to say but, after the past two weeks, can’t really mean anymore. Even if the Democrats don’t succeed in getting the longer-term deal they’re pushing for, Obama believes he gave the Republicans something like an early Halloween monkey’s paw: They got their wish, but it came true in a form so grotesque that they’ve learned never to make a wish like that again.