Kurtz Republicanism isn't likely to go away until somebody else within the party — someone with more movement credibility than the speaker, and more subtlety and vision than Ted Cruz — figures out how to take the energy driving the shutdown and redirect it to more constructive ends.
The House GOP actions driving the shutdown played perfectly into the online fundraising strategy of the DCCC.
The forces driving the current shutdown are just the latest indication of a disturbing trend in American politics: Elected officials increasingly feel accountable to a vanishingly small percentage of the population with the financial means to threaten their political existence instead of the voters they're elected to represent.
Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, estimates that there are about 30 hardliners in the House driving the government shutdown and another 150 Republicans who are just playing along out of sheer terror of crossing the incredibly powerful coalition of post-Citizens United interest groups.
It was an incredibly tough semi-final: we put so much into stopping their driving maul that my body went into shutdown in the final 20 minutes.
WASHINGTON -- Some Democratic women state lawmakers say fear of the tea party is driving the Republican Party during the current federal government shutdown and budget talks.
But with no paycheck in sight due to the government shutdown, the 43-year-old has started driving for Uber to help make ends meet.
Unfortunately, fear of Obamacare success is in the driving seat right now, and may well lead to government shutdown, debt default, or both.
Lorenzo Smith, 23, a driver who said he was ticketed last week for driving a bus without the proper license, said the temporary shutdown was probably a good thing for him.
IF the government shutdown has shown us anything, it's that the 80 or so House Republicans driving the crisis have emerged as the most unified force in politics: tightly organized, highly disciplined and ideologically firm.
