They’d never say it publicly. But catch many Democrats in an honest moment and they would admit that a Republican-led government shut down this fall might be the best thing — perhaps the only thing — that could revive their fading hopes of capturing the House next year.
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Nothing short of a powerful jolt — a moment that grabs casual voters by the lapels and makes them take notice — is likely to alter the landscape in a dramatic way. A shutdown could be it, Democrats argue, putting in play GOP-leaning districts now thought to be all but out of reach.
“There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It would be a boon to us,” said Andrew Myers, a national Democratic pollster. “How could it not be?”
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Some Democrats argue that it would provide huge motivation for their party’s voters, who historically have been less likely to turn out for midterm elections than presidential ones. A shutdown, they say, would fire up liberals across the country who might check out without President Barack Obama on the ballot.
They note that there’s reason to believe that a shutdown would have a real impact on people’s lives. When Republicans forced consecutive government closures in late 1995 and early 1996, some museums and national parks closed, services for veterans took a hit, the National Institutes of Health stopped taking new patients and the Centers for Disease Control halted disease surveillance.
But more than that, it was a genuine media earthquake, with nightly newscasts and headlines dominated by damaging stories about then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his GOP foot soldiers.
A repeat of that, say Democrats, would give their candidates potent ammunition to attack Republicans as uncompromising and dysfunctional. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has sent out a batch of press releases labeling a possible fiscal crisis “Tom Cotton’s government shutdown,” in reference to the freshman Republican House member who just announced he is running for Senate next year.
