GOP lawmakers disappointed by Ted Cruz should have listened to him more carefully before

The Examiner's David Drucker reports many House Republicans are angry and disillusioned with Sen. Ted Cruz. The Texas Republican has been traveling the country encouraging people to support a move to defund Obamacare. But now that House Republicans have committed to passing a continuing resolution that does just that, Cruz has admitted Republicans don't have the votes to succeed in the Senate.

"Harry Reid will no doubt try to strip the defund language from the continuing resolution," Cruz said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. "And right now he likely has the votes to do so."

The truth of that was obvious. Democrats have 54 votes in the Senate, and not a single one has expressed support for defunding Obamacare. In addition, several of the Senate's 46 Republicans have expressed opposition to the defunding proposal. Sen. Mike Lee's pledge to refuse to vote for any government funding bill that includes funding for Obamacare has been signed by just 14 GOP senators -- a minority of the minority.

But to House Republicans who support defunding, Cruz's admission sounded like a surrender before the fight. "I don't know how you could say, right now, that there are not the votes for it [in the Senate]," Tennessee GOP Rep. Phil Roe told Drucker. "I don't understand that." Other lawmakers expressed deep disappointment in conversations reported by Drucker. "Gee, thanks for the support," said Florida Rep. Trey Radel.

The unhappiness is understandable. But perhaps those Republicans now angry at Cruz should have listened to him more carefully all along. In his speeches promoting the defunding campaign, Cruz, a Harvard-educated lawyer, chose his words closely, not claiming that defunders had the votes to prevail but instead suggesting that they might somehow spur a popular uprising against Obamacare in which an enraged populace would pressure reluctant lawmakers to change their positions -- and then vote to defund.

Cruz's rhetorical strategy was on full display during a late August trip to New Hampshire, home to the nation's first president primary of the 2016 race. In an appearance at a state GOP fundraiser, Cruz repeatedly said the Obamacare fight could not be won in Washington DC. "The only way we're going to succeed in defunding Obamacare is if it comes from the American people," he said. "This is not a strategy of trying to convince Washington, DC. It's a strategy of empowering the American people."

Cruz was saying, in an indirect but still clear way, that Senate Republicans did not have the votes to defund Obamacare. (I wrote this at the time; see here.) Cruz went on to outline a plan in which, if enough people signed a petition at the website dontfundit.com, and then got in touch with their senators and representatives to urge them to support defunding, public sentiment would force lawmakers who now oppose defunding to change their minds and support it. "The only way we're going to succeed in defunding Obamacare is if it comes from the American people," Cruz said.

The tactic would even work on Democrats, Cruz argued. "If you're a Democrat, particularly in a red state, who's up for election in 2014, and you start to hear from 5,000, and then 10,000, and then 20,000, and then 50,000 of your constituents, suddenly the calculus starts to seem very, very different," Cruz told the New Hampshire audience.

Cruz was more direct in an appearance on CNN at about the same time. "We do not have the votes right now," he told the network on August 25. "I believe if we see a grassroots tsunami, that is going to cause Republicans and Democrats to listen to the people."

"It is going to take a tsunami and I'm going to do everything I can to encourage that tsunami," answered Cruz.

Now, Cruz has admitted again that defunders do not have the votes in the Senate to defund Obamacare. The difference from earlier statements, at least for those disappointed Republicans, is that some of Cruz's fellow lawmakers in the House are about to actually cast votes to defund. They're all in, and the last thing they want to hear is a leader of the cause in the Senate admit that it can't succeed.

Later on Wednesday, after the storm over Cruz's words, he and fellow defunder Sen. Mike Lee appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News program. Cruz tried some damage control. "I can guarantee you one thing," he said. "Mike and I are going to fight with every breath in our body. As Churchill said, we will fight on the beaches, we will fight on the streets, we will fight at every step to stop the biggest job killer in America."

Those words would have been inspiring to House Republicans a week ago. Now, nobody is quite sure exactly what Ted Cruz really means.

Beginning to think that Byron York is a Democrat.

Byron York certainly is pessimistic. Rather he should have mentioned that...

It was irresponsible to pass a law without reading what is in it.

It is irresponsible to kill babies because it is cheaper than taking care of them.

It is irresponsible to create death panels to kill old people because it is cheaper than treating them.

It is irresponsible to force Christians to help kill babies because it is cheaper.

Please defund Obamacare and get rid of a destructive and counterproductive law that cannot be implemented as written.

History has shown time and again that centralized governments do not work; they are oppressive.

Come on Byron, you are either attempting to generate a schism where none should exist or your trying to find an excuse to put words on paper.

Every second day you were on Bill Bennett's radio show telling the world that the votes were not there in the Senate; you admit yourself that Ted Cruz all along has said that the votes presently were not there in the Senate; you admit that Ted Cruz has said all along that it is necessary for the people to put pressure on their legislators for this to succeed.

Where is the story? York now quotes these obscure Republican congressman as somehow feeling betrayed by Ted Cruz? Please. Many of our Republican legislators might be stupid but there is none of them too stupid not to know how to count and it has always been obvious that with Republicans in the minority in the Senate and with Senate Rinos hardly an endangered species, that the votes were not there and are not yet there.

But the most annoying aspect of this article is the fact that the votes to defund Obamacare do not have to be there in the Senate. They have to be there only in the House of Representatives and once Obamacare is defunded, the entire equation changes. That is Ted Cruz's argument, it has always been Ted Cruz's argument. He has argued that the Republicans must make the case to the people that it is Obama shutting down the government, Obama is doing so out of ideology to defend his signature piece of legislation which is killing jobs, killing the economy, ruining healthcare, and ultimately ruining the nation.

In making that argument we will be making it to a segment of the country which already is a majority, that is the majority of the people who are already opposed to Obamacare. Once Obamacare is defunded by the House, the question is not why do Republicans want to shut down the government but why do Democrats want to shut down the government to preserve Obamacare? If the Senate declines to accept the Republican continuing resolution to keep the government open, and claim that it is the House Republicans who are shutting down the government when it is in fact the Democrats, nothing prevents the Republicans every single day of the week when The House is in session from passing a new continuing resolution which funds the government apart from Obamacare. Every day the Democrats will have to make persuasive logic out of the fallacy, they will have to stand reality on its head, they will have to lie day after day. Sooner or later the absurdity of their position will become clear even to low information voters and that will eventually change the dynamic in the Senate.

So far the mainstream media has put out as indisputable reality that by failing to fund Obamacare the Republicans would be proactively shutting down the government. That is a preposterous and untenable statement of fact. Force the Democrats to defendant it. Take reality to the people.

It is at this point that the left and the Rino's cleverly shift the argument. It is at this point that they say, "the votes are not there in the Senate" and "the president certainly will not sign a bill repealing Obamacare." This is not a bill to repeal Obamacare but to defund it. The issue before the country is whether or not to keep the government open without funding Obamacare the issue is not whether or not to repeal Obamacare. This puts Senate Democrats, Senate Rinos, and the president on much less advantageous ground. They are shutting down the government to deny the people a delay in the implementation of Obamacare when they have already delayed, exempted, or subsidized the implementation of Obamacare for themselves and their cronies. The Democrats position only succeeds if they can flimflam the people into believing that it is the Republicans and not they themselves who are shutting down the government.

Which side of that argument would you rather debate? Which side of that argument would be more comfortable for a Senate Rino? Once shut down the issue is not whether Obamacare should be repealed but whether the government should be kept open. Republicans want to keep it open the Democrats want to shut it down. Which side of that debate do you like?

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