Obamacare funding fight splintering? GOP

Reaping their reward.

Fight! Fight!

A growing number of Republicans are rejecting calls from leading conservatives, including Sens. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, to defund the president?s health care law in the resolution to keep the government running past Sept. 30. The rift exposes an emerging divide over how the GOP can best achieve its No. 1 goal?to repeal Obamacare?while highlighting the spreading fears that Republicans would lose a public relations war if the dispute leads to a government shutdown in the fall.

The debate is happening behind closed doors and over Senate lunches, as well as during a frank meeting Wednesday with House leaders in Speaker John Boehner?s suite where fresh concerns were aired about the party?s strategy. On Thursday, the dispute began to spill into public view, most notably when three Senate Republicans?including Minority Whip John Cornyn?withdrew their signatures from a conservative letter demanding defunding Obamacare as a condition for supporting the government funding measure.

The Senate fight is quite public, with one GOP senator calling the defunding plan the ?dumbest idea? he had ever heard. Senate GOP leadership, now that Cornyn has slunk back under his rock, will likely just ignore the nihilists, and can probably slap the idea down between now and the fall, when the funding debate happens. House Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader Cantor, however, might have a bigger problem on their hands. They've got a letter from more than 60 members telling them to have this fight.

Lest you wonder where the impetus is coming from for the yahoos:

Atop the letter it reads ?supported by Heritage Action and Club for Growth,? in all capital letters, and highlighted in yellow, referring to the conservative outside groups.

The Republican Party made its bed with these groups, or lined their pockets with them anyway. And now they're feeling the pain. Doesn't it just make your heart bleed for them?

2:05 PM PT: It gets even better. Here's Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK).

?You?re going to set an expectation among the conservatives in our party that we can achieve something that we?re not able to achieve,? Coburn continued. ?It?s not an achievable strategy. It?s creating the false impression that you can do something when you can?t. And it?s dishonest.? [...]

?The strategy that has been laid out is a good way for Republicans to lose the House.?

Popcorn, anyone?

3:13 PM PT: Game most definitely on.

Originally posted to Joan McCarter on Fri Jul 26, 2013 at 12:52 PM PDT.

Also republished by Daily Kos.

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Source: http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/JzM-7d21VEE/-Obamcare-funding-fight-splintering-GOP

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