Wondering why I was banking on Republicans keeping the government shutdown and being likely to default last week? It’s the level of epistemic closure crazy, also known as a delusional break with reality.
To wit: Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the “educated” version of Sarah Palin and very new addition to the Senate, is in charge of the GOP and he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. He drinks the Kook-Aid and then force feeds it to the rest of his party, who take it from him since it’s delivered through Koch straws. On Wednesday, Cruz was pulling a Romney, unskewing polls for fellow Republicans, claiming that the shutdown bolstered their position.
I kid you not.
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Senior Congressional Correspondent David M. Druckner at the Washington Examiner reported that on Wednesday, Cruz “Wednesday argued to his Republican colleagues that the campaign he led to defund Obamacare has bolstered the GOP’s political position in dealing with the government shutdown.”
To accomplish this act of faith, Cruz relied upon a poll that he paid for.
The survey’s findings mirrored other national polls: More voters blame the Republicans for the government shutdown than blame President Obama or the Democrats. But Cruz argued, based on the poll, that Republicans are in a much better position than they were during the 1995 shutdown because this impasse is defined by a disagreement over funding for the Affordable Care Act as opposed to a general disagreement over government spending.
Drucker got his hands on the Cruz poll and revealed the numbers:
By a margin of 46 percent to 39 percent, voters blamed Republicans for the shutdown over “Obama and Democrats.” Another 19 percent blamed both sides equally.
– By a margin of 42 percent to 36 percent, independent voters blamed Republicans for the shutdown over Obama and the Democrats.
– In November 1995, 51 percent of voters blamed Republicans for the shutdown; only 28 percent blamed then-President Clinton
If Republicans are using the Clinton numbers to ease their fears of being found out by Mommy USA, they are making a grave error. During the Clinton presidency, there was no Fox News. There were no conservative media outlets driving home an often inaccurate, partisan narrative that justifies anything Republicans are doing. There are more misinformed Republicans now, yes.
But Republicans are losing Independents. According to PPP, Democrats now lead Republicans with Independents, 42%-33%. Even in Ted’s own poll, they are losing Independents 42-36. It’s hard to say what Cruz tells himself that allows him to believe he can run for President, but whatever it is, is contagious and lethal to the national ambitions of the GOP.
Republicans don’t believe regular polls, so they probably shouldn’t be allowed to commission them — it only feeds their delusions. They certainly shouldn’t be allowed to commission them from Republican pollsters, and that is what Wilson Perkins Allen is. I’m not suggesting that they aren’t a valid pollster, but rather if I were in charge of the GOP, the first order of business would be to take the hard medicine of reality with no chaser.
The only way they are going to become a viable national party again is if they can face things outside of the Fox bubble. I’d go into enemy territory and see how my party was faring among Dems and Indies. The “Democratic pollster” of PPP was the most accurate during 2012. Wouldn’t you use the most accurate pollster you could if it were your party on the line? Hiding under the covers helps nothing but the GOP ego, which obviously doesn’t need any bolstering.
Also, earth to Ted Cruz: Not everyone hates ObamaCare, so defunding the country over ObamaCare is not the winner you think it is. Publicly snickering at people without insurance isn’t helpful either.
Cruz just admitted again that Republicans shut down the government over ObamaCare, a completely unrelated to the budget law. This means that Republicans are refusing to do their Constitutional duty. Or, “gaining position” according to Ted Cruz.
Remember when Republicans used to be the party of “ideas’? Now they’re a brainwashed cult.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
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