Townhall.com ^ | October 1, 2013 | David Limbaugh
Why
is it just assumed Republicans will automatically be blamed for any government
shutdown over a budgetary impasse between Obama and his Democratic Party and
Republicans?
More
disturbingly, why do so many Republicans and right-leaning commentators
surrender before we've even begun to fight?
Do
our moderates believe there is any position President Obama and the Democrats
could take that would result in the public's blaming Democrats, rather than
Republicans, for a shutdown?
The
moderates always cite polls that say Republicans will be blamed, but who decreed
that polls are set in stone? Which Republicans, when they were campaigning for
election, promised to govern according to the polls and not their
principles?
But
if we must discuss the polls, let me ask you to consider what would happen if
the pollsters framed their questions as follows:
"Will
you support efforts by congressional Republicans to defund Obamacare, even to
the point of a government shutdown, because they believe it is the greatest
destroyer of jobs today in America, it will reduce access to and the quality of
health care, it will not ensure coverage or care for everyone, it will not allow
people to keep their own doctors or their own plans, it will cost the government
at least twice what Obama promised, it will not reduce the health care expenses
of a typical family of four by $2,500 as Obama promised but increase them by
some $7,400, it is such a legislative mess and so burdensome that many have
demanded to be exempted from its various provisions and President Obama, in
disregard of his own health care law and of the Constitution's separation of
powers doctrine, granted, by executive fiat, special exemptions and delays to
some and not others, and that the Internal Revenue Service, which has been
caught red-handed abusing its power against the administration's political
opponents, will be in charge of enforcing Obamacare?
"And,
dear voter, wouldn't you agree that it's a bit unfair to conclude that
Republicans are mainly at fault for shutting the government down when the
Democratic Senate has continually ignored its legal duty to pass budgets, Senate
Democrats have flat-out announced they won't negotiate and have leaked their
secret desire that the government shuts down so they can demonize the
Republicans, and Republicans have, in fact, passed several budgets, which only
exclude the funding or delay the implementation of Obamacare, a law that is very
unpopular with the American people?"
Of
course, we'll never see poll questions so patently loaded, especially in favor
of the Republican position. And we shouldn't. But we do see slanted poll
questions all the time, subtly nudging the participants toward a desired
response. I'm sure that's the case here.
But
we shouldn't be defeated by poll questions based on a snapshot in time and based
on fixed assumptions that don't allow for any change in public opinion based on
future events and communications. Unless he is clairvoyant, no pollster can
factor into his questions the precise unfolding of events leading to and after a
shutdown, and the possibilities of how they're communicated are endless.
Polls
can't possibly predict to any degree of reliability how the public would respond
to a shutdown if Republicans finally united and articulated a compelling case to
the public before and during a shutdown, including the points contained in my
absurd hypothetical poll questions.
What
if Republicans got together, instead of shooting one another in the backs, and
made those points and also hammered Obama for refusing to come to the table on
real spending and entitlement cuts?
Objectively
speaking, Obama's position all along has been indefensible. Almost nothing he's
said about Obamacare is true -- and this can be easily demonstrated. He will not
do anything about our short- and long-term spending problems, and he and his
party are the ones who are absolutely refusing to negotiate in good faith, if at
all, on these budgetary issues.
Though
I respect my more moderate friends on the right and don't wholly discount their
position, I believe that their default defeatism and their friendly fire against
principled conservatives such as Ted Cruz are damaging the GOP's chances of
convincing the public of the unreasonableness of Obama's position and the
reasonableness of their own.
I
believe that if Republicans would finally draw a firm line in the sand and then
go to the media with a united, 24/7 communications effort, they would -- with
their courage, their principled stand and their contagious patriotism --
reignite the grass roots and inspire many others to recapture an optimistic
spirit, a spirit that says that America is not yet dead and that there are still
elected officeholders who are willing to stake their careers on saving this
nation.