Over the last few days I've been sitting at home and thinking to myself, "why in the fuck doesn't Speaker Bonehead just let a clean CR vote happen and be done with this? He's got to know that this is harming the Republican party."

That's when a few things dawned on me, and I actually began to feel a little sorry for Speaker Bonehead.

Back in the days before the Dems retook the Congress in 2006, and when Dubya was fucking up the country, I kept noticing, with awe, just how lockstep and unified the Republican party was. Dubya never had to veto anything, the GOP Congress just did exactly what he told them to do. No matter how much harm they did, this incredibly effective cat herding had to at least be admired for how well it was done.

Reagan may have been one of the worst Presidents in US history, but he was a masterful politician. He told the Republican party to never, ever say a bad thing about a fellow Republican in public. All disagreements had to be settled on in private and behind closed doors.

But since Dubya has left office, this has gone out the window. What changed?

The last time the new Congress was sworn in, the first order of business is the election of the House Speaker. The vote is always just pomp and circumstance, everyone knows who the next Speaker will be. Traditionally in the Republican party, this is all decided upon behind closed doors. A Speaker doesn't normally lose his job unless he lost his re-election, he has to step down amid a scandal, or the party suffers serious losses in the election, and new leadership is called upon. When it comes time to cast the actual vote, everyone gets in line, and shows unity behind their newly elected Speaker.

But not last January. Speaker Bonehead had to suffer the humiliation of one member of his caucus after another, calling for someone other than him to be the next Speaker. When it was all said and done, Bonehead won his Speaker election by a scant 6 votes, as hushed whispers over took the House floor.

Why couldn't Bonehead keep his own caucus in line?  The party of perfectly refined unity has turned into a disorganized mess. How could this have happened? It's because Bonehead didn't have a whip to punish them for getting out of line.

Traditionally, the National Republican Campaign Committee provided a significant portion of the campaign funds for each Republican seeking election in their districts. If a member stepped out of line, the party leadership would just withhold campaign funds from them to punish them.

But not anymore. The Republican Senate counterpart, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has Senator Ted Cruz as one of their Vice Chairman, yet Senator Cruz hasn't even bothered to sit in on any of their meetings. Why? Because the NRCC and NRSC have become meaningless and almost powerless in light of the Citizens United decision.

What Citizens United did was allow superpacs to give unlimited funds for campaigns. Before, only the two major political parties could be given unlimited funds, which would then disperse those funds as they see fit to their candidates. But now, Republicans seeking election can just get their money from outside sources. Find a billionaire, create a superpac, and away you go.

And with this new reality, the GOP party leadership have no way to keep control over their own ranks.

So while this shutdown will be incredibly harmful to the Republican party as a whole, it won't cause any harm to a minority of teaparty radicals who are free to demand a shut down, and won't pay any consequences because their districts are 80% red and are among the least competitive in the nation.

So Speaker Bonehead is in one hell of a tough spot. He can either give in to this minority and allow a lot of damage be done to the GOP, or he can suffer a coup d'état. He now has to try to balance these two things, keep things shut down long enough to make the tea crazies happy, but not long enough that it costs the GOP their prized goal of winning the Senate in 2014.

No wonder these guys have been doing a lot of drinking lately.

Another thing I noticed in the last few days. Did you know you really don't HAVE TO pay your gas bill? It never dawned on me before, but fuck, I have a fireplace and a chainsaw.

-- Modified on 10/2/2013 9:57:09 PM