It's not impossible to imagine that GOP Sens. Lee, Rubio and Cruz have been so busy devising villainous methods of the federal government's destruction that they never had time to learn how that government works. Mike Lee, for instance, may be one of his party's crown jewels of duncedom--conference committees are secretive cabals of skulduggery and betrayal which should be avoided at all costs, he has warned the citizenry--but surely his Capitol Hill staff is aware that "even if the federal government shuts down, Obamacare can still continue pretty much apace," and has advised Boss Lee accordingly.
In brief, his radical team effort to defund Obamacare through a government shutdown is not only "silly" and the "dumbest idea" some of his Senate colleagues have ever heard of, it's simply unworkable. By now, Lee and his friends surely know that.
So why persist, other than for propaganda value? Perhaps merely to embarrass the bejesus out of Mitch McConnell, or better yet, sabotage his reelection labors. "Among those supporting Lee’s plan is Matt Bevin, the Republican leader’s recently launched primary challenger," reports Chris Cillizza. And "McConnell is not a signatory on the letter Lee circulated to win support for his plan."
For the Senate minority leader, chronic obstruction is one thing, but acute stupidity is another. And yet he may be forced to sign on to the latter nevertheless--which could expose McConnell not only to Democratic ridicule in his general election campaign, but to charges of colossal failure in his primary. For while it's true that shutting down the government won't--can't--accomplish Obamacare's defunding, Kentucky's tea-party base isn't likely to uncomplainingly accept such a reality.
To the Senate's tea party gang, Minority Leader McConnell has always been a suspicious wheeler-dealer and closet traitor, ready to sell out the moronically honorable purity of principle the tea partiers so jealously guard. No matter how often he proves himself otherwise, McConnell will never be embraced as a true and faithful "made" guy--and the Senate tea partiers' "defunding" strategy just may be their way of whacking him.