GOP politics and the Cruz fight against Obamacare

Erick Erickson:

Within hours of Liz Cheney, now a candidate for the Senate in Wyoming, announcing her support of Ted Cruz’s filibuster, Senator Mike Enzi, who Cheney is primarying, took to the floor of the United States Senate and declared he stood with Ted Cruz.

Pat Roberts, the elderly Senator from Kansas who may soon be getting a stiff primary challenge, stiffly stood on the floor of the United States Senate to show he too stood with Ted Cruz.

Rand Paul, after NBC News reported he may disagree with Cruz’s filibuster threat, went to the floor of the Senate and stood with Ted Cruz.

Meanwhile, John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell and Lamar Alexander and other Republican Senators are leaking attacks against Cruz on background. They complained to reporters about Cruz suggesting they were cowards. They did so off the record and in the shadows.

Mitch McConnell, instead of standing with Cruz on the floor of the Senate, participated in a teletownhall in which he told listeners the only way to stop Obamacare was for him to be Senate Majority Leader. [update: this information came after the initial post]

Ted Cruz and Mike Lee will not get the forty-one votes they need to sustain their filibuster. They will be betrayed by Republican senators who are willing to fund Obamacare while claiming to vote against it. But in this filibuster and in their brilliant strategy, they have exposed Republicans who will not fight. They have exposed Republicans who are so desperate for their own reelection they will say or do anything when they could not bother in off years. They have shown Republicans that there are Republicans who are willing to stand up to Barack Obama and to the cowards within their own party.

They have also exposed a lot of people on the outside as frauds. To be sure, there are conservatives who have legitimate reasons to disagree with this strategy. But there are a whole lot who have been exposed as finger lickin’ frauds — willing to put their finger to the wind of beltway opinion to chart their course.
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Erickson is a little harsh in his treatment of those who disagree with Cruz, but those who disagree have done an extremely poor job of making their case.  They need to move beyond insults of Cruz and Lee and state why they don't want to make this fight.  I suspect they will have a tough time with that argument because it is mainly tactical fight based on "feeling" that it will be easier to defeat Obamacare after it goes into effect.  The base of the party is not buying this argument.  It is really a play for independent voters while alienating the base.