10 winning points on the shutdown, three lessons learned

By: Michael Hammond 10/21/2013

The bottom line? Republicans lost. Republicans won.  It never does good thing for your party when you wet your pants and flee in terror, as House Speaker John A. Boehner (R.-Ohio) and his “leadership team” ultimately did.   That said, notwithstanding declamations from the puppet press to the contrary, the showdown will probably help Republicans in the 2014 midterm elections. Why?

First, while one heavily-touted poll showed House Republicans dropping seven points, the Associated Press showed Barack Obama’s approval ratings down to 37% — an 8 percent drop from earlier surveys. Many Americans came out of this convinced, for the first time, that Obama is a genuinely nasty and vengeful man.  Americans hate Congress, but love their congressman. For real analysis, congressional ratings are irrelevant, compared to the damage done to Obama’s “nice guy” brand.

Second, a Pew poll commissioned well into the shutdown found that there was a statistically insignificant difference between Americans who felt the GOP should insist on changes in ObamaCare and those who felt they should open the government without any preconditions.  Obviously, this poll was largely ignored in the puppet press. In fact, every poll — and there were more than one — suggesting that Democrats were not benefiting from the showdown disappeared into the ethosphere…..To Read More…..