It's going to come down to this -- 87 Teabagger freshmen in the House who are willing to go down with the sinking ship as political martyrs if we don't cut nutritional aid to pregnant women and their abortion bills aren't signed into law soon.
WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats on Tuesday posed an ultimatum to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on the budget: Bring your tea party "extremists" in line or prepare for a government shutdown come April 8.
On a conference call with reporters, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Thomas Carper (D-DE) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) took turns excoriating Boehner for what they depicted as the House GOP leadership's capitulation to the 87 House freshmen threatening to scuttle any deal with insufficiently high spending cuts.
"Our problem is that we see now that Speaker Boehner is yielding to the extremes of his party, basically saying he's not going to negotiate, take it or leave it," Cardin said, insisting that Democrats were eager to compromise and cede ground to reach a deal.
I may not like it, and you may not like it when Democrats say they are "eager to compromise" but they are still the adults in the room and right now they are calling Boehner's leadership bluff. And don't be fooled, this really does put Boehner in a tough position. If he brings the Teabaggers in line, they will seek revenge on him. If he doesn't, he will be seen as uncompromising and it may very well be him who is blamed for a government shutdown. Gingrich anyone?
If there's one thing the polls all show right now, it's that Americans want compromise. I don't agree with "Americans" in this instance, but that's the base which the current discourse is being waged upon.