Go ahead, shut it down! That's the new cheer from the conservatives pushing to defund Obamacare. To their lily-livered compatriots who worry that the Senate will reject the defunding gambit, resulting in a shutdown when the federal government runs out of money at the end of this month, they claim that wouldn't actually be so bad: Americans, they say, would cheer the Republicans for sticking to their principles and opposing the unpopular health-care legislation.
It's a case increasingly being made by activists on the right, who cite polling data and a revisionist view of the 1995 government shutdown. But under close scrutiny, the claims don't hold up.
The contention that Americans would cheer a shutdown rests on a new Rasmussen Reports poll that supposedly shows a majority of Americans favor shutting down the government to defund Obamacare. It was emailed to me by a conservative activist, Scott Hogenson, who wrote, "RE: Obamacare and the prospect of a government shutdown. Seems a majority of Americans would be okay with that."
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