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Why the shutdown was a total victory for conservatives, both in the short and long runs.

Why the shutdown was a total victory for conservatives, both in the short and long runs.

The shutdown/debt limit imbroglio wasn’t a defeat. Defeats leave the losers feeling defeated. But the designated losers, the conservative base of the GOP – which, more accurately, now is the GOP – is more eager and excited than it has been in a long time.

Why? Someone fought. Finally.

Sure, we didn’t win the repeal of Obamacare. The only people talking about actually repealing Obamacare as a direct result of the tactical moves of recent weeks were the doddering dinosaurs and their media accomplices trying to put out the notion that Ted Cruz and his band of merry marauders had suckered us numbskull conservatives with promises of total victory right here and right now.

Being very familiar with the Constitution, we realize that it’s kind of difficult to pass a law when we only hold the House. We’re clear on that. We were always clear on that. What Ted Cruz did – and what the go-along, get-along gang of Republican stegosauruses hate – is that he fought. He fought. There’s a huge value to drawing a line, to taking a stand, to rallying the troops.

Real leaders – which the GOP establishment lacks – know that. We’ve had two presidential elections in a row with a demoralized base. That’s bad. Just ask Presidents McCain and Romney. [emphasis in original]

The key for determining which side is winning this battle is to look at the positions that new politicians are taking. That tells you the trend. And what I see is that the challengers all want to be Ted Cruz, not John McCain.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

17 comments

  • Joe

    John McCain is a stain on conservatives, he and the rest of the rino’s need to be primaried out!

  • Cotour

    Ted Cruz, the De facto leader of the Republican party.

    Why?

    Because he remembers who sent him to the Senate and why, he has integrity and above all else he is a Constitutionalist first and a politician second. That being said, he and all the rest of them are not to be blindly trusted with the peoples freedom, they all have to be constantly checked and challenged as to what they are doing and why. And when they forget, they are to be replaced. Love not your politician.

  • Cotour

    I just realized something, Obamacare is something that the president is going to be held directly responsible for. When you think about until now he has “voted present” as he has done in the past. This mod of operation is designed so he remains at a distance from blame and without fault. But its hard to deflect the big fat FAILURE sticker that is going to be wanted to be stuck somewhere by the urchins that expect their “fair share”.

    I think that’s what I see coming down the road. Combine that with eliminating all of the Rhino Republican capitulators and there may be a glimmer of hope yet.

  • wodun

    Didn’t look like there were any winners in either party.

  • Publius 2

    Excellent comments, Robert. We should all not forget that Ted Cruz, like Obama, graduated from Harvard Law. Unlike Obama, however, he went on to become a practicing attorney who argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. So, as the liberal/left campaign to discredit him progresses, these facts should be thrown back at them at every opportunity. If they consider Obama brilliant because of his educational background, then Sen. Cruz should be considered beyond brilliant, because he actually accomplished things as an attorney. And he spoke for nearly 24 hours on the floor of the U.S. Senate entirely without a teleprompter. I wish someone would challenge Obama to speak for 1 hour extemporaneously.

  • Dick Eagleson

    As long as no one has to listen. Making someone listen to a whole hour of Obamian blather violates both the Geneva Convention and the 8th Amendment.

  • Frank K

    Ive notices how different, in may ways opposites, Ted Cruz and our president are in their personal styles. Mr. Cruz argues for the constitution. He does not get personal nor does he seek retribution. He sticks to making his case using facts which he knows and understands. Our president and many of his liberal supporters cant deal with facts. Thy obfuscate and make up straw arguments, and use personal attacks to avoid answering the important questions. And they seek to punish those that don’t agree with them. I support Ted Cruz.

  • D. K. Williams

    Disagree. In the short run, Cruz rescued a president reeling from scandals and the Syrian debacle. In the long run, driving down Republicans favorables makes it harder to win back Congressional seats in 2014.
    Cruz violated the principle that when your opponent is self-destructing, get out of the way and let him.

  • What I find frustrating about the entire shutdown situation is how everyone wants to argue about Republican tactics, whether they had the right “optics” or not, but no one seems willing to discuss the “optics” of the Democratic position.

    The Democrats refused to negotiate, and they did so in order to defend Obamacare, a law that doesn’t work and that is doing enormous harm to hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens. Moreover, we have a horrific debt problem. The Democrats’ position: It doesn’t exist, we won’t deal with it, and let’s spend more money we don’t have.

    Nothing any Republican did has the bad optics of the Democrats. Cruz was opposing Obamacare. Other Republicans were trying to restrict spending. In all cases, the Republicans were at least trying to deal with the problems we face. It was the Democrats who have their head in the sand and refuse to budge.

    And yet, people criticize the Republicans? If anything, it is the Democrats who should be lambasted.

  • joe

    With all the problems Obama is having with the roll out of Obama care, I am surprised that they didn’t give the Republicans the one year extension, a little ironic.

  • Joshua

    Coast to coast brought me here… I’m curious.. What are your facts to back up this statement?
    “The Democrats refused to negotiate, and they did so in order to defend Obamacare, a law that doesn’t work and that is doing enormous harm to hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens. “

  • From the beginning of the federal shutdown I have been following the events and posting them as they unfolded. The one consistent fact was the refusal of the President and Harry Reid in the Senate to negotiate. They were very public with this refusal. It is no secret. They made it very clear they would not agree to any budget deal that included any changes to Obamacare. None. To me, that is a refusal to negotiate.

    Democracy is compromise, and compromise is even more required when you have a divided Congress. The Senate is controlled by the Democrats, but the House is controlled by the Republicans. Both were legitimately voted into this position by the public. Thus, when it comes time to pass budgets and laws, both sides are required to pay attention to the demands of each other. It is the height of irresponsibility to refuse.

    As for Obamacare, I have been documenting the law’s failures for the past three years. Use the search feature on Behind the Black to search for the word “Obamacare”. You will come up with more depressing data than you can imagine.

    I think we are right now seeing with the failures of the Obamacare website only the tip of the iceberg. The worst is yet to come. The law is unworkable. Worse, its high cost and complex regulations have caused businesses to cut back on employment and investment.

    We might agree that something must be done to improve the health insurance and healthcare industry in the United States. Obamacare was not the way to do it.

  • Cotour

    I heard postulated, on Coast To Coast last night, by Michael Rivero something that made sense to me in the purposeful confusion that is our government. Obamacare is designed to demonstrate to potential lenders that the American government, who is certainly looking to borrow more funds from prospective lenders, that the government has a new source of solid cash flow from the public. That’s why the enrollment in Obamacare has been turned on its head to where you have to enter ALL of your personal information first, including your bank account numbers, before you get to choose any product. No honest operation creates such a captive situation. Think about it a little bit differently.

    Our highly inflated, fiat based money supply needs some new credibility since the only thing that is able to drag us out of where we are is missing, which is real economic growth. Obamacare is not about healthcare its about control and continuing the economic magic trick. Eventually it will have to be revealed that there is nothing there, there.

  • Chris L

    They didn’t agree to that because it was about politics, not policy. Obama (and Reid) just wanted the shutdown theater aspects of it all, so even reasonable suggestions had to be rejected. Now that the show is over (and the reality of Obamacare is rising to the surface), it’s time to put off the consequences of this shit sandwich once again. In a way, the website goat fornication is a blessing for the Dems. It gives them an excuse to avoid the pain for a little while longer.

  • Joe

    And now the Dems propose to do what the republicans wanted to do that triggered the so called government shut down, delay the personal mandate to purchase health care insurance coverage!

  • Cotour

    This is what is called bad optics for the president. Although he has moved on and is now focused on “fixing” immigration.

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