Internal Republican Congressional Politics-- A Madhouse

The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the GOP version of the NY Times, warned the congressional Republicans Wednesday morning, "It's time to wrap up this comedy of political errors… 30 or so Members were tired of getting kicked around by Heritage Action and Senator Ted Cruz and want the whole thing settled… Republicans can best help their cause now by getting this over with."

Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, on NPR, explained that the radicals in the House had left Boehner and Cantor in the awkward position of having to turn to Nancy Pelosi to save the country from their own Members' extremism, nihilism and ignorance.

Boehner seems to have woken up yesterday, taken a shot of Jack Daniels to steel himself and finally said it's time to "get it over with… take the tough vote." Bye, bye, fake Hastert Rule. With non-Southern Republicans freaking out that their party was about to start firing on Ft Sumter and pressuring Boehner to take control back from radical Confederates Ted Cruz and Jim DeMint, the GOP candidate for mayor of New York, Joe Lhota, did all he could on Tuesday night to distance himself from his party. "Do not lump me with the national Republicans. It's unbecoming." Another New Yorker, Long Island Congressman Peter King, told Anderson Cooper that "The game is over. We have to get this done. John Boehner’s tried everything he can, but there’s some people in our party, no matter what he tries to do, they won’t go along… I’ve said all along, this is madness-- it was madness to follow Ted Cruz,. It was absolute madness to say we want to shut down the government, to defund Obamacare. It never made sense and now all we’re down to, apparently, is trying to pass a [CR] to take away healthcare from congressional employees. That’s what we shut down the government for. It makes no sense."

Let's move slightly west and south, to Pennsylvania's prosperous 15th CD, the Lehigh Valley (Bethlehem, Allentown, Kutztown and down into a bit of Amish country). Mainstream conservative Charlie Dent has been the congressman for this area since 2004. It has a PVI of R+2, although Obama beat McCain here, 52-47%. The DCCC has never bothered taking Dent on and a series of local Democrats never had the money they needed to beat him. Steve Israel is pulling the same thing again this cycle-- perfectly happy to waste resources on impossible R+8 and R+6 districts for his Blue Dog/New Dem conservatives, while leaving Dent without a challenger.

Dent has been a dishonest player-- and a model for his mainstream conservative colleagues-- on the whole mess over the government shutdown and default threats from the Cruz wing of the GOP. He's been blustering and posturing nonstop about how wrong the strategy is-- but voted on every single occasion with the teabagger contingent. That's right… he was an enabler and his votes were identical to Michele Bachmann's, Steve King's, Louie Giohmert's and to the whole seditious pack of Tortilla Coast wingnuts.

Tuesday night, Dent was at it again. Posing as a responsible conservative, Dent got himself onto CNN to talk calmly about passing the Senate compromise before tomorrow. But Dent is a coward. He's petrified of a Tea Party primary and would be equally scared of a Democratic challenge-- if not for the certainty that Steve Israel will continue the DCCC free pass for reelection for him. Below, he explains the "hope yes/vote no" Republican strategy of cowardice:



So, like we explained last night, 87 Republicans, including Boehner and Dent, finally made common cause with every Democrat to end the Tea Party government shut-down and take a step away from forced default. The only Pennsylvania Republican in an "Obama district" who voted with the Confederates was Joe Pitts. The others-- Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach and Meehan-- were relieved to be allowed to get on the record as having voted to end the shut-down and oppose a default while sticking to a version of (tattered) party orthodoxy. Now we'll see if any of the primary threats from the right-wing hate groups come into play. I doubt it for any of these guys-- and so did they.