GOP Self Destructs As Boehner Won’t Let Republicans Leave Until They Pass Border Bill

[customerserviceguy]

43. So, had they managed to eke out enough votes for this

Would either the Senate or the President go along with it? No, I don't think so.

What 'failed' here is Boehner's attempt to get the tea party to vote against their own interests. I know you can imagine embarrassed moderate Republicans standing in front of a town meeting, with egg on their faces about not being able to persuade enough of their (usually rural) colleagues into signing on to this, but that's not going to happen as often as you might think. What I can imagine is tea party Rethugs being able to go back to their districts and thunder, "We stopped the Democrats and the President, and the RINOs from rolling out a red carpet and a welcome mat to the invaders!"

Boehner had no chance of persuading more than maybe a couple of tea partiers to go along with his bill. They really don't give a damn about what he looks like, in fact, if they had the chance (and they just might) they'd surely put in one of their own.

Also, no compromise was possible, as both sides are completely dug in. In the old days, when poli-sci professors talked about politics being the art of the possible, and everybody knew that the final bill wouldn't give them everything they wanted, something would have indeed been worked out. I didn't see the Senate putting its bill up for a vote, either. Today, it's not even about making your opponent look bad for 'not doing his job', it's about being sent to Congress to stop the other side, even if nothing gets done. It's been that way at least since the Nixon Administration.

If the House had passed that bill, and even peeled away some possible border state Democratic representatives to go along with their majority, we'd be clamoring for its total death in the Senate, and there would be a lot of distress if the President signed it. Repukes would have used the "dysfunctional" label on our party, but we wouldn't care, as long as a bad law got stopped.

The American public really doesn't care about the optics, either. They will vote for whom they fear the least, and when one side or the other persuades the mushy middle that the other side is scarier, they win.