Unlike Democrats though, Republicans are hampered by distrust of one another. Rush Limbaugh feeds this atmosphere of suspicion by suggesting that the reason Republican leaders are avoiding another shutdown is that they secretly support what Obama has done on immigration. “The Republicans want what Obama wants on immigration and they are using the government shutdown as an excuse to not stop [him].”
There is little doubt that the shutdown damaged the party’s standing. Polls showed that approval of the Republican party hit an all time low of 32 percent during the shutdown. Fifty-three percent of Americans blamed the GOP for the impasse, versus only 29 percent who blamed the president. Approval of Congress registered at 12 percent, with 85 percent disapproving and 70 percent strongly disapproving.
And for what? After three and a half weeks of predictable and predicted bad press, Republicans were forced to reopen the government having achieved nothing. The shutdown was a triumph of politics as tantrum. There could be no path to repealing Obamacare while Democrats controlled the Senate and Obama sat in the Oval Office.
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