Please God -- Let This Happen (With Update)

Via TPM:

A leading conservative group unveiled poll results Wednesday that it said should assuage Republicans who are squeamish about shutting down the government in an effort to defund Obamacare.

The poll from Heritage Action for America, first reported by NBC News, surveyed likely voters from 10 competitive House districts. According to Heritage Action, the results prove that triggering a government shutdown in an attempt to gut the new health care law would not be detrimental to the GOP.

The poll, conducted by GOP firm Basswood Research between Aug. 7-8, found that 28 percent of voters in the 10 districts would blame Republicans for a shutdown over defunding Obamacare, compared with 22 percent who would place blame on President Barack Obama and 19 percent who would blame Democrats in Congress. Seventeen percent said they would distribute blame equally among all three groups.

I just can't get enough of this stuff.  Of course a government shutdown will hurt the GOP, just like it did when the Republicans pulled the same crap back in 1995-96.  With regard to this threat to shut down government over ObamaCare, the President revealed what the Democratic response will be during a recent press conference:

In a White House news conference on Friday, the president was asked about Republican threats to shut the government down if appropriations legislation contained funding to continue putting the Affordable Care Act in place in the 50 states.
 
He replied, "The idea that you would shut down the government unless you prevent 30 million people from getting health care is a bad idea."  ***  Obama also expressed wonder that making sure 30 million people don't have health care is "the one unifying principle in the Republican Party at the moment."

"Why is it that my friends in the other party have made the idea of preventing these people from getting health care their holy grail; their number one priority?"

The reason such a response will be effective is because it is true -- the GOP has offered nothing to replace Obamacare.  But it gets better, because it turns out that shutting down the government will not stop the implementation of Obamacare. Even Mitch McConnell knows that:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told a crowd at Baptist Health Corbin, Ky. on Tuesday that shutting down the government won't actually stop the implementation of Obamacare. "I'm for stopping Obamacare, but shutting down the government will not stop Obamacare," he said, according to Tanner Hestberg, a local reporter for CBS affiliate WYMT.

McConnell is right: As a recent Congressional Research Service report found, a government shutdown would not impact major portions of the law which will continue to receive implementation funding that the law provides outside the appropriations process.

And the absolute best part of all this is that if the Republicans do not shut down the government over Obamacare, then you know the Baggers are going to make a big issue out of it in the 2014 GOP primaries. This means, of course, that the more moderate GOP members of Congress -- if there are any left -- will lose their primaries to the more radicalized members of their party (aka the Akin-Mourdock Effect). 

Shut the government down or don't shut it down -- it really doesn't matter in the long run because the GOP is toast regardless of what happens.  Now that's what I call a win-win.

So my response to Republicans who want to shut down the government over Obamacare?  Bring it on, Motherfuckers.

UPDATE:  Steve Benen reports on the latest GOP threat with regard to Obamacare, namely, the Republicans will agree to increased the debt limit only if the Democrats agree to delay the rollout of Obamacare.  In other words, the GOP is backing down on its threat to merely shut down the government, opting instead to intentionally bring down the American economy unless Obamacare is delayed. Ezra Klein describes it this way:

Trading a government shutdown for a debt-ceiling breach is like trading the flu for septic shock. And Boehner knows it. Republicans will effectively be going to the White House and saying, “Delay the health-care law or we will single-handedly cause an unprecedented and unnecessary global financial crisis that everyone will clearly and correctly blame on us, destroying our party for years to come.”

Bottom line: the biggest threat to the security of this country isn't China or Russia or al-Qaeda -- it's the fucking Republican Party. The GOP is on a suicide run and is apparently content to bring the whole country down with it.