Snake-oil huckster.

Snake-oil huckster.

After months of fiery rhetoric, Cruz and his allies are scrambling to salvage their strategy. For starters, Cruz wants Reid to make an exception to Senate rules that would make it easier for Republicans to block Obamacare funding. [...] Cruz is asking Reid to subject the vote on removing the Obamacare provision to a 60-vote threshold instead of “abusing his power.” That sort of agreement would require the consent of all 100 senators, which isn’t going to happen. “The Senate, generally on controversial votes, we work out an agreement for it to be subject to a 60-vote threshold,” Cruz said on “Fox News Sunday.” Otherwise “the majority is going to run the minority over with a train.” Reid’s parliamentary strategy is “basic Senate procedure,” said a Democratic leadership aide on Sunday. “No one is taking him seriously on this.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has never exactly had an effective plan for how we was going to achieve defunding Obamacare through a government shutdown threat, but that isn't stopping him. He convinced enough of the crazy caucus in the House that if they just wished hard enough, they could make it happen. It worked, because John Boehner is the weakest Speaker of the House ever, but Cruz has a problem in the Democratically-controlled Senate. But here's how deluded, or megalomaniacal, Cruz is: He thinks he can make Majority Leader Harry Reid bail him out. No, really Why Cruz thinks Reid is going to be in the mood to do him any favors is a mystery. Not even fellow Republican are taking Cruz seriously. Well, except for Mike Lee, who maybe is thinking he can be Cruz's running mate in 2016 or something. Who knows? Failing this, though, Cruz has a contingency plan, which enough Republican senators think is stupid enough to already doom it. He wants Republicans to filibuster the procedural vote to open debate on the House bill: He wants Republicans to block the House bill that defunds Obamacare. That means he's asking Republicans to vote against defunding Obamcare, a vote plenty of them aren't willing to take.

Of course, very little of this charade is about defunding Obamacare or about shutting down government. It's about Ted Cruz in 2016. The collateral damage of a government shutdown is just the sacrifice we'll all have to make for Cruz's ego.

Stand with Daily Kos and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in denouncing Republicans who would completely shut down the government just to destroy Obamacare.

