Full faith and credit and showdownarama 2013

[chappy]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

Hardly. The Tea Party is a small fraction of Republicans, and not even a particularly influential one at that.

I hate to agree with RDS :) but he's absolutely right one this one. Though the numbers are down from 2010 when Tea Party Republicans made up strong majorities--enough to elect a number of useless representatives--the numbers in 2012 have Tea Partiers punching well above their weight in electoral votes. They consist of somewhere just above of a third of self-identified Republicans but make up over half of the actual voters.

Their rhetoric is strictly non-compromise and pushing the party farther to the political right.

Part of me believes this is a good thing, because this ideology has been soundly rejected by the majority of the American public and especially by young people. This will ensure that neo-cons make up a smaller and smaller part of the political landscape--which is a good thing. The problem with a weakened and marginalized slightly right of center, which has almost no voice in the Republican party, is that there is no true balance to the political excesses of the left--which is a bad thing.

Pollsters like Nick Silver have shown the Republican party a path or two back to relevance, they continue to try to blame anything but their own ever-increasingly myopic views.

[only_human]

(In my opinion) The Tea Party punches above its weight in the offering rival candidates in otherwise safe Republican districts and politically harming more moderate candidate in other ways too, and also in the Presidential Primary process. What kind of campaign might Mitt Romney have held without a Tea Party litmus test? Strong polarization is also very successful in drumming-up contributions in the new (post Citizen's United decision) funding dynamic.

Quite some time back I found, much to my surprise, that more Republican political books are purchased from Amazon than Democrat ones. That disrupted my belief that the party does not attempt to read about things. Confirming already held beliefs by reading corresponding books might be another topic though.

[only_human]

Disruptions stir-up many things. The economic meltdown exposed Ponzi schemes. Looking back at another shutdown, The Hill mentions the Monica Lewinsky scandal:
White House: Interns would not work during government shutdown [thehill.com]

"[It] is not the case now, that volunteers or interns would be working," White House press secretary Jay Carney said. "They will not."

That was not the case during the 1995 government shutdown, when the White House gave interns — including, most notably, a 22-year-old Monica Lewinsky — an expanded role.

In the report prepared by Kenneth Starr, the White House staff shrunk from 430 people to about 90 people during that shutdown. As a result, Lewinsky took on a larger role in the West Wing, running errands for then Chief of Staff Leon Panetta.

It was during that time that former President Clinton and Lewinsky began conducting an extramarital affair that would ultimately lead to Clinton's impeachment.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

I disagree. They have a great deal of influence. And the rest of the party
is following them like sheep.

Or, the rest of the party is running hither and yon in terror of the Tea Baggers, like chickens with foxes in the yard.

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

I disagree. They have a great deal of influence. And the rest of the party
is following them like sheep.

Clearly not, or else the military would have been slashed by now.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

Clearly not, or else the military would have been slashed by now.

I think that the military cow is still sacred for all except Paul père et fils, and I have my doubts about the piety of le fils.

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by chappy

I hate to agree with RDS :) but he's absolutely right one this one. Though the numbers are down from 2010 when Tea Party Republicans made up strong majorities--enough to elect a number of useless representatives--the numbers in 2012 have Tea Partiers punching well above their weight in electoral votes. They consist of somewhere just above of a third of self-identified Republicans but make up over half of the actual voters.

I agree with everything you write above. The number of voters is large compared to the number of representatives identifying themselves with the Tea Party. This is what I would call "not influential". If there were few Tea Party voters but many Tea Partiers in congress, I would call that influential.

Alternately, you could measure influence in terms of their desideratum. Have taxes gone down? I'd say they were not influential in that respect either -- I don't have any numbers* but I think taxes on the whole have increased, say as a fraction of GDP.

* If you have numbers, please share!

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by kladner

I think that the military cow is still sacred for all except Paul père et fils, and I have my doubts about the piety of le fils.

For me this is a litmus test for the Tea Party vs. Republicans. If they want to grow or maintain the current levels of military funding, they're 'classic' Republicans. Not to say that a Tea Party rep might not vote for military funding, but that they'd only do it as a compromise (just as they might vote for other things they dislike as compromise). Any old Republican can vote against Social Security, say -- they've been doing it for decades.

But maybe there are other tests that are just as good. What other big-ticket expenditures would a traditional Republican support that a Tea Party rep would oppose? (Military spending is just an obvious convenient target.)

FYI, I'm neither a Republican nor a Tea Partier.

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by only_human

Confirming already held beliefs by reading corresponding books might be another topic though.

That's pretty common to essentially all members of all parties. I've never seen a professed Democrat/leftist/etc. read a Republican book or vice versa. No doubt it happens but it's rare.

[ewmayer]

Neither of the major parties gives a rat's behind about actually bringing the budget back into a remote semblance of balance - they only care about steering the vote-buying monies towards their pet porkage. This is as usual just Capitol Hill

[only_human]

How long will the shutdown last?

My feeling is that if it lasts more than a few days, department coffers emptying will get old and the GOP will realize that arguing about the debt-ceiling while the government is already shut down will look especially bad. This is an important consideration because any potential harm of a default runs up against a denial machine that has perfected itself over smoking/climate/blahblahblah.

So from my point of view it might be better for the government to be shut down for two weeks. Paycheck-to-paycheck people might fail to pay rent but that would be far better than a sovereign default. Maybe this is a false choice though.

I'm collecting votes:

How long will the shutdown last?

1. 0 Seconds
2. Hours
3. 1 Day
4. 3 Days
5. 1 Week
6. 2 Weeks
7. Longer that 2 weeks

My vote is D: 3 Days.