Government shutdown? GOP hardliners are being rational
Certainly, what they are doing is dangerous to the country and to the GOP brand: A minority within the government is saying that if their demands are not met, they will throw the nation into default and shock the economy by closing down the government.
But this doesn't mean that the 228 House Republicans (joined by two Democrats) were acting irrationally when they voted Friday to keep the government operating only if Obamacare is jettisoned. Most of them were acting in their own rational self-interest, doing what's necessary to survive in a political system gone mad.
The tally by political handicapper Stuart Rothenberg says that 211 of the 234 Republican seats in the House are "safe," leaving only 23 even marginally competitive. Some of those seats are made safe by the incumbents' skills or bank accounts. But many of the seats are safe because district lines have been drawn to make them uncompetitive.
The only way these Republican lawmakers would lose their seats is if they were ousted by a challenger in a low-turnout primary dominated by conservative activists. The surest way to keep their seats, therefore, is to vote against anything and everything President Obama supports -- Obamacare above all.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/225034502.html
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the Tea Party is playing to their base-country be damned
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