Shutdown Corner–Updated

So I have no insights about the politics of a government shutdown tomorrow–maybe it would be bad for Dems, maybe it would be bad for the GOP. If anything, my guess would be that shutting down the government over Obamacare could be hugely destabilizing (politically) and that the results are actually pretty unpredictable. (If this view was correct, though, then both sides would have incentive to avoid a shutdown. The GOP looks to have pretty good positioning for 2014; Dems want to try to preserve Obamacare. The status quo has a lot to offer both parties.)

That said, what I’m really struck by is the nearly unanimous chorus from the left about how awful a shutdown would be for Republicans. If they really think that the GOP will be devastated by a shutdown, then wouldn’t they be welcoming it, instead of lamenting all the awful, no-good extremists which have hijacked the party?

(That is, hijacked it in the wake of the last hijacking in 2012. And the one before that in 2010. Which came after the hijacking in 2008 and  . . .)

Update: Galley Friend X offers some smart thoughts:

My guess is the Ds are talking up the horrors so much because they suspect the impact will not be felt very far beyond Fairfax and MoCo. Nevertheless, they know that “shutdown” polls miserably for the GOP.  So if they gin up the horror story ahead of time and then the media report “shutdown” it’ll hurt the GOP via political narrative as opposed to by actually having the GOP harm people. This strikes me as a pretty good strategy on one level. On the other, it’s possible that people will wake up and realize the government does a lot of useless shit (as with the sequester) and not mind the actual shut down.  I think that gets hard to predict–especially what that does in terms of party negotiations is highly variable. E.g. Durbin is now willing to talk about the medical device tax, which I think is a surprising admission of weakness on the Ds’ part.

I just think the GOP misplayed their hand because of the Obamacare mania.  Instead use targeted poison pills in the CRs aimed at 2014 democrats to get clean admissions for the elections on their support of discrete and unpopular policies like the individual mandate, congressional Obamacare perks, carbon regs, med device tax, whatever. But that would help win elections beyond just Iowa….