From the Daily Beast:
No question, Boehner is having a rough time of it, trying to impose order where very little exists. "Speaker Boehner is under a lot of pressure," says Republican leadership aide-turned-strategist Ron Bonjean. “So far, he's acted like a pilot flying a plane through severe turbulence, calmly speaking to passengers.”
Boehner’s choice, increasingly, seems to be between shutting down the government—and, in all likelihood, inflicting serious damage on his party—and cutting a deal that would put him on the outs with a big chunk of his members and possibly endanger his leadership position. It’s a choice between two immensely unappetizing options. And no one knows the risks better than Boehner, who is in the unique position of having already suffered through both outcomes.
Unlike many in his conference, the 20-year veteran had a front-row seat for Newt Gingrich’s 1995 shutdown. Boehner knows just how quickly voters stop worrying about their ideological principles and start worrying about their missing services. Bad-mouthing Washington is all well and good until folks can’t get their tax refunds or their passports or their Social Security applications processed. And while it may sound trivial, all those nice families who get turned away from their long-planned visits to Yosemite or Yellowstone can get seriously grumpy.
