From Bloomberg and Gallup via PoliticalWire comes the news that America's view of Obamacare and the tea party are getting more interesting.
From Bloomberg comes the news that we're tired of the Republicans' self-destructive tactics. "Screwed it up beyond belief," says one libertarian Republican.
Half of Americans say Republicans should stop demanding that President Barack Obama’s health-care plan be defunded as part of legislation to keep the government running even as they voice concern about the law’s impact.
Three in five people say they think the law will raise medical-care costs, and more say they will be worse off than better off under it, according to a Bloomberg National Poll.
At the same time, by a margin of 50 percent to 43 percent, Americans say congressional Republicans should accept that it’s the law of the land, according to the Sept. 20-23 poll.
They “screwed it up beyond belief, and now they want to go back to nothing,” says John Beck, 57, a libertarian Republican from Austin, Texas, in a follow-up interview. “If we at least fix it, they could do something positive,” says Beck, an unemployed electrical engineer. ...Bloomberg
As for the tea party...
As Washington braces for another budget showdown, this time with the threat of defunding the new healthcare law in the mix, the key political force pushing for conservative policies sees diminished popular support. Fewer Americans now describe themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement than did at the height of the movement in 2010, or even at the start of 2012. Today's 22% support nearly matches the record low found two years ago. ...Gallup
After the drubbing the Republican party took in the 2012 election, they seemed eager to turn things around. But things have only gotten worse. Anna Palmer writes at Politico:
This week’s showdown over defunding Obamacare at the expense of potentially shutting down the government is the most recent example in a series of fights activists have supported, including forcing a debate on National Security Agency surveillance, filibustering nominations in the Senate and thwarting Republican support for gun control legislation.
If one of the lessons of 2012 for the GOP leadership was to make peace with its rightward flank, so far, it’s not getting a passing grade when it comes to establishing a real sense of teamwork. Tea party lawmakers are still willing to buck party leaders, often at the behest of conservative groups, despite the fact that top aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have organized a regular invite-only meeting of roughly a dozen advocates from entities like R Street Institute, Independent Women’s Forum, American Conservative Union and Americans for Tax Reform to encourage an open dialogue. ...Politico
Over here in the center and on the left, there's a certain amount of healthy cheering as each day and week give us the spectacle of another bumble, another screw-up, another miscalculation sailing in from the right.
Republicans appear to know what they're doing to themselves. But they go on doing it. In part that has to be due to the pressure coming -- unceasingly -- from so-called "conservative" but actually extreme-right groups from the Heritage Foundation to Grover Norquist's anti-taxers to the "Values Action Team." That's in quotes to remind us that, in a democracy, one man's "values" are another man's shudder of disgust.
