Last time, the MSM carried the water of the Dems and hammered home the “It’s the Republicans fault” meme.
Things have changed. The internet, blogosphere, message boards, social networks etc...were not around then.
A gov’t shutdown or a busted budget replete with massive spending...I think the choice is pretty clear.
Yep, I remember the MSM played the anti-republican rhetoric 24/7 during the shutdown. They managed to find every poor slob that was even slightly inconvenienced by the shutdown and interviewed them. To this day I can remember the story about some family that drove cross country to some national park, only to find it closed and some small business that did grounds keeping work at a federal building saying he was going to have to lay off people.
We would certainly have a better shot these days with Fox News and the Internet. But what most people don't realize is that although the shutdown hurt Republicans in 1995, what put the nail in their coffin was caving to Clinton. I still think if the Republicans would have not have caved they would have ended up in a much better position. The problem was, when their poll numbers started to head south, Bob Dole, the party head and presumptive GOP front runner in 1996, started pressuring Gingrich to back off because he thought a prolonged shutdown would hurt his chances in 1996. In reality, it was caving in that ruined his chances. It was latter revealed by insiders that Clinton would have folded if the shutdown had gone on only one week longer.