They describe how he developed the idea of using the continuing resolution process to defund Obamacare and has been pitching the idea for months. Many Republicans in Congress have been opposed to doing so, but DeMint appears ready to play hardball:
Many Republicans looked on in horror as the defund movement gained steam. If the government shuts down, polls suggest blame will fall most heavily on the GOP. North Carolina Senator Richard Burr calls DeMint’s plan “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” Representative Tom Cole, a veteran Oklahoma Republican, has likened the shutdown threat to “putting the gun to your own head. You’re basically saying, do what I want or I’ll shoot.” DeMint doesn’t see why his ploy should hurt Republicans. “Democrats will be shutting down the government to protect Obamacare,” he insists. As DeMint sees it, if Republicans would just toughen up and start singing from the same hymnal, public opinion might swing to their side. And if they won’t, he plans to turn his legions of supporters inside and outside of government against them.
The story highlights a growing division within the Republican Party, a fight over how to regain power, and suggests that the current level of dysfunction in Congress is due to this internal conflict:
When most Americans look at Washington, they see a broken Congress, riven by partisanship and lurching from crisis to crisis. While the hostility between Republicans and Democrats is indeed severe, it isn’t the real reason the engine of government keeps seizing up. What’s causing the malfunction is a battle within the GOP over how to return the party to its former glory after two consecutive losses to Obama and setbacks in the House and Senate. It’s a fight that pits uncompromising, Heritage-style conservatives against more cautious Republican elders. What makes it so contentious is that both sides have radically different—and mutually exclusive—ideas about how to move forward.
Boehner and his allies want to avoid direct confrontation. DeMint and company do not. DeMint also seems to be building one of the external organizations that may have more influence on the positions taken by Republican members of Congress than their elected leaders.
