(Community Matters) Playbook: Obama, weak politically, “gets up every day and reads the newspaper and thanks God that Ted Cruz is in the United States Senate,’ a Republican senator pointedly told Cruz at a closed-door meeting. …”
TICK-TOCK — “Anatomy of a shutdown,” by John Bresnahan, Manu Raju, Jake Sherman and Carrie Budoff Brown: “Speaker John Boehner just wanted to sneak out of the White House for a smoke. But President Obama pulled him aside for a grilling. Obama wanted to know why they were in the second day of a government shutdown that the speaker had repeatedly and publicly pledged to avoid. ‘John, what happened?’ Obama asked … ‘I got overrun, that’s what happened,’ Boehner said. It may be the most concise explanation of a chaotic, 16-day standoff that prompted the first government shutdown in nearly two decades … The House Republican conference ran roughshod over Boehner … He was overtaken by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who swept in near the end to forge a bipartisan agreement, part of an attempt to shield Republicans from further damage and salvage his party’s chances of winning back the Senate … Republicans never believed Obama would hold firm on his refusal to negotiate and Democrats would maintain an unusual level of cohesion – united by a visceral desire to put the tea party in its place and an almost mama grizzly instinct to protect Obamacare. ‘It was not a smart play,’ McConnell said Thursday of the GOP’s Obamacare strategy. ‘It had no chance of success.’
“Obama and Reid stuck together, emerging as the political victors .
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