Democrats are painting Republicans as the 'shutdown party' in time for the midterms. Dems paint GOP as shutdown party

Democrats hear only one thing when Republicans talk about fighting President Barack Obama’s immigration agenda or GOP plans for controlling Congress: government shutdown.

In fundraising requests, media appearances and conference calls, Democrats are painting Republicans as the “shutdown party” just in time for the midterm elections that coincidentally hit right after the one-year anniversary of last year’s October shutdown.


Democrats hope this emerging strategy persuades voters that if Republicans win both the House and Senate in November, there will be more unpopular shutdowns and Obama will have to fight hard against the GOP to simply preserve the policy legacy of his first six years in office.

( Also on POLITICO: Déjà vu for Obama in Syria)

The Democratic argument is based on history — the narrative, which Republicans deny, that they intend to impeach Obama and that’s why they sued him over his executive actions on Obamacare. More recently, Democrats contend Republican opposition to imminent unilateral action by the president on immigration could lead to a shutdown of the government.

Of course, the Democratic strategy is less overt — White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Wednesday it’d be a “shame” if the government shuts down over immigration. But Democrats are giddily presenting the possibility of a replay of last year’s shutdown, which hurt Republicans politically, hoping to nationalize Senate races and present a Democratic Senate as essential to keeping the government running.

The shutdown talk is being stoked after recent comments by prominent Senate Republicans like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida that predicted a confrontational stance toward Obama on spending bills if either the GOP takes the Senate or the president announces new changes to immigration policy.

McConnell “repeatedly threatened to shut down the government unless Republicans get exactly what they want,” said Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on Wednesday. Rubio, she added, wants to “essentially bludgeon the president into submission over immigration policy.”

( Also on POLITICO: How Reid holds veto power over Obama)

“Republican leaders, once again, prefer to threaten another government shutdown over advancing essential legislation,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Not so fast, GOP aides said Wednesday. Republicans responded just as they did when confronted with impeachment talk in July after passing the House’s lawsuit against Obama: This is all about Democrats’ political priorities, not GOP policy.

“Democrats have decided to promote the idea of a government shutdown at every possible opportunity,” said John Ashbrook, a spokesman for McConnell. The shutdown rhetoric “says far more about their failed campaign strategy than it does about how Republicans would approach their responsibilities as a majority party.”

“The only people talking about shutting down the government are partisan extremists like Debbie Wasserman Schultz who are looking for a way to raise money and divert attention from the failed presidency of Barack Obama,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman for Rubio.

( Also on POLITICO: A Whopper of a tax problem)

In an interview with POLITICO this month, McConnell said he’d “guarantee” that a future GOP Senate would attach policy riders to spending bills, daring Obama to veto them. Two months earlier, according to The Nation, McConnell made similar promises to conservative donors.

But McConnell also has predicted little drama this September, when he believes Congress will swiftly avert a shutdown and return home for the midterm elections.

But Democrats touted only one thing: McConnell is “senator shutdown,” as Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes put it in Owensboro, Kentucky, on Tuesday. A campaign source said that’s likely just the beginning of Grimes’ shutdown talk.

Should they take the Senate in November, Republicans vow to pass appropriations bills in “regular order” next year, funding the government far in advance of government shutdown deadlines that typically fall on Sept. 30. And Ashbrook noted that McConnell never raised the possibility of a shutdown in the POLITICO interview.

Democrats have tagged Rubio, a prominent immigration reformer and possible 2016 presidential candidate, as part of the shutdown crowd for signing onto last year’s strategy to oppose spending bills that funded Obamacare. They also cite his opposition to any further executive action on immigration by Obama — and remarks he made this week that hypothesized how the GOP might respond to Obama’s unilateral order.

Rubio told conservative website Breitbart that if Obama moves on an executive order that could allow millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States, Republicans may tie a vote on overturning that action to a must-pass spending bill in September. Democrats swiftly moved to attack Rubio after his comments, linking immigration hardliner Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) to Rubio after King said on Wednesday that executive immigration action would alter “the dynamic of any continuing resolution.”

Conant said Rubio has no desire for a shutdown.

“All Sen. Rubio has called for is for Sen. Reid to allow votes on Republican solutions to the immigration catastrophe our nation faces,” he said. “The only thing Sen. Rubio wants to shut down is Harry Reid’s tenure as majority leader by winning a Republican majority this November.”

Of course, the shutdown game goes both ways. Republicans maintain that a shutdown is most likely to happen if Democrats tie a spending bill to the Export-Import Bank’s reauthorization. Senate Democrats are weighing attaching Ex-Im to this fall’s funding bill, but no final strategic decision has been made.