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Bull

People like their Congressman and conservatives would have voted for their tea party Congressman as usual. The House would have stayed in R hands

It is the Senate that is big here. Getting the Senate would have allowed Congress to set the agenda for the final 2 years of O’s term, laying the ground work for 2016 when the ACA would have been repealed with an R Congress and an R President

That opportunity has been blown.

The problem isn’t that we have too few senators. The problem is that we have too many senators like McCain and McConnell, and too few like Lee and Cruz. The Democrats understand that it isn’t a numbers game, it’s a high stakes battle revolving around determination and fortitude. Why were they so willing to lose the House in order to pass ObamaCare? Why did the loss of the Kennedy seat not derail them? Why did the political disaster of 2010 (from their perspective) not slow them down?

Because they understand that a few seats here or there doesn’t make a difference. What matters is being more determined and more focused than the other side.

I have no way of knowing whether this helps or hurts the Republicans politically in 2014. And neither does anyone. The shutdown in 95 had, at most, a marginal effect, despite occurring at the worst possible time for the Republicans (tons of vulnerable freshman, a general election involving a popular incumbent against a man as inspiring as whole wheat toast, and, most importantly, a shutdown over an issue that didn’t personally affect anyone).

What I do know is that had we done nothing, the Democrats would have been perfectly fine. Any problems with ObamaCare would have been lost in the water that the media would make as muddy as possible. It would have cost them a few seats, perhaps, but nothing that would have made a difference.