With 50 days to go until the midterms, GOP keeping its troops in line

On Capitol Hill, Tea Party insurgents who forced a government shutdown last year are playing nice with GOP leadership in the campaign’s home stretch in a bid to keep the heat on President Obama and off a sometimes-divided GOP caucus.

“This isn’t a fight that seems to be the most important fight right now, to quibble over a little here and there when [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid won’t [negotiate] at all,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), generally a thorn in the side of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said of the stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown by Oct. 1…

And House allies of Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have launched a campaign that is halfhearted at best to try to extend the must-pass funding bill or continuing resolution into 2015, when they argue the party could be in a stronger position to cut spending.

The only real hiccup in the march to approve a new spending bill has been the president’s surprise request for authority to train and arm Syrian rebels fighting against the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).