I have an alternative spin on Speaker Boehner’s incentive to toss the Tea Party aside and seek a deal with the Democrats on the continuing resolution and the debt ceiling. Begin with a simple fact: Boehner cannot get 218 votes from his own caucus for anything and he doesn’t want to cause a government shutdown or a default on our debts. How does he get out of this without capitulating to the Democrats, ripping his caucus apart, and imperiling his speakership?
There is no perfect solution, but what I would advise him to do if I were a savvy Republican (who doesn’t care about the well being of the country so much as the well being of the GOP) is to make a public show of breaking with the Tea Party and seeking the help of the Democrats, but then to take a bargaining position that the Democrats won’t accept. This is the inverse of what the president has done time and time again with the Republicans.
Boehner could thereby make it look like he was bucking his rabid base and that any government shutdown is the result of the Democrats being unreasonable.
Or, you know, Boehner could fall on his sword for the good of the country and make a deal that the Democrats would actually accept.
