Are There Really Purportedly Mainstream Republicans Who Want To Vote For A Clean CR?

Nunes calls teabaggers "lemmings with suicide vests"-- but he votes with them 100% of the time

No one ever accused Devin Nunes of being a "moderate." He's a hardcore conservative whose political career has been financed by the insurance industry, corporate agriculture and Big Pharma. Although his San Joaquin Valley district (CA-22) is increasingly Hispanic, the voters are still Republican enough there for him to not have to worry about Democrats seriously challenging him. The PVI is R+10 and Obama only garnered 43% of the vote against McCain and 42% of the vote against Romney. The Democrats didn't even bother to run anyone against him in 2010 and the candidate last year only drew 38%. Nunes is safe. But he has statewide aspirations and that explains his stand this week with so-called "moderates" or, more appropriately, "mainstream conservatives against the crackpot teabaggers. Keep in mind, Nunes voted to shut the government down every time Boehner and Cantor brought it up.

Unlike many Republicans, Nunes is publicly criticizing some of his colleagues, calling them "lemmings with suicide vests" earlier this week.

When Nunes first started hearing of the strategy to shutdown the government in order to defund Obamacare, he did the math, and thought it couldn't be done. Republicans didn't have the 67 Senate votes needed to override a veto from the White House.

"It's just a matter of math. It was a silly strategy from the beginning," said Nunes.



The resulting government shutdown, said Nunes, is bad for the Republican party.

"It's crazy. I don't understand the whole point, the whole strategy. Most Americans don't understand it," said Nunes.

The California Republican said a small group of lawmakers, what he calls "the lemming caucus," have been blocking GOP House leadership for three years.

"It's guys who meet privately. They're always conspiring. It's mostly just about power. And it's just gotten us nowhere," said Nunes.

If that is the case, then why hasn't Nunes, or the 200 fellow Republicans he said agrees with him, been more aggressive?

More aggressive… like voting against the unpopular shutdown? Even the Chairman of the NRCC, Greg Walden (R-OR), the GOP's version of Steve Israel, admits, at least in "private" that the Tea Party crazies are controlling the Republican Party now. When meeting with high-rolling Wall Street donors in September, Walden was grilled about the then impending shutdown. “Listen,” Walden said, according to several people present. “We have to do this because of the Tea Party. If we don’t, these guys are going to get primaried and they are going to lose their primary.”

Wednesday, Boehner was able to use a complex parliamentary maneuver to prevent a floor vote on the House floor for the Clean CR that Nunes and a couple dozen other self-proclaimed mainstream conservatives claim they favor. Chis Van Hollen (D-MD) introduced it in the form of a Motion to Recommit and the parliamentarian ruled it out of order and he was backed up by the GOP leadership. When Van Hollen appealed the ruling and it went to a floor vote, every single Republican-- including the so-called "mainstream" ones-- voted to uphold the parliamentarian's ruling, meaning that there would be no vote on a clean CR.

I don't think Devin Nunes or most of the other Republicans want to ever vote on a clean CR. All they want to do is posture. That way they don't offend the teabaggers enough to get an annoying (or, in some cases, dangerous) primary... but can still tell independent voters that they stood up against their party's extreme fringe.


UPDATE: Republicans Are Still Keeping The Government Shut Down

This afternoon the Democrats offered another procedural tactics to get a clean vote on the CR. Devin Nunes and the so-called "moderates" all stuck with Boehner and Cantor except for Peter King. The Republicans prevailed 222-183. None of these guys, except King, are even remotely serious about a clean CR. They just want to get on local TV and say things that make their constituents think they're not teabagger crazies, even as they vote in complete lockstep with the teabagger crazies.