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The Republican strategy of universal obstructionism, focused on preventing the reelection of Barack Obama, is no longer tied to any such goal. With party leaders scrambling to figure out how to prevent a government shutdown in 100 or so hours (spoiler: without much luck), it's clear that the "beat Obama" strategy is now just beating up themselves.

Polls consistently show that if there's no spending measure approved before October 1 and the government switches off the lights (however incompletely), the Republican Party will get the blame. (A new CBS Poll: 44 percent would blame GOP; 35 percent, Democrats.) Republican leaders in the House and Senate never wanted to embark on this now nearly week-long diversion in which the party pretended that it could halt Obamacare by somehow tricking Obama into signing a bill gutting the program. (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell walks up holding a partially-obscured piece of paper, asks for the president's autograph.) But pressure from the base, fomented by activist groups and Sen. Ted Cruz, made it hard not to at least go through the motions.

Which was totally predictable, in retrospect. From shortly after Obama's election, activists and the conservative media argued that the Obama administration should be fought at every turn. There was this sense of a mixed mandate, which Speaker John Boehner revived after the most recent election — yes, America had twice voted for Obama to be president and the 50 states elected a Democratic majority in the Senate, but they'd also elected a Republican majority in the House. That House majority, elected in 2010, provided enough cover for Republicans to deploy McConnell's now-famous "single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president" strategy. Fight Obama's priorities, drag your feet on ones that pass, with the aim of making Obama look weak in 2012. It worked, but not well enough.

But now the base and hard-right members taste blood. Democracy, predicated on the idea that we elect people to Congress with the goal of representing our local interests to work out what's best for the country, has been replaced with the idea in some circles that a member of Congress is there to force a political ideology on the country, no matter the cost. A Pew poll earlier this month asked which was preferable: shutting down government to stand up for principles or compromise. The results are at right. Which makes sense: the Tea Party hates the government! And they're vocal. Rep. Peter King told Politico that the calls he received from backers of the Cruz defund-Obamacare plan were "vile."