Politics for the day

Ashley Parker has an article in The New York Times about political difficulties:

Republicans who have been so disciplined in their opposition to President Obama are now finding themselves badly splintered over how to keep the Department of Homeland Security operating, as they struggle to demonstrate they can govern effectively as the party that controls Congress.
The split between Senate and House Republicans has become increasingly public, and the two sides have shown little inclination toward compromise.
Democrats have been unified in their opposition to the Republican approach, passed by the House, that would provide money to keep the department open, but also reverse Obama’s executive actions on immigration. In tones mocking and defiant, House Republican leaders signaled that the next move was up to their Senate colleagues.
“I love Mitch,” said House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, referring to the Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, even as he placed responsibility to avert a shutdown of the agency squarely in the other chamber. “The House did its job,” he said. “Now it’s time for the Senate to do theirs.”
Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana (photo), the majority whip, echoed that sentiment when he told a private lunch of Senate Republicans that they should not expect the House to send them another bill to fund the department.
So with just seven legislative days until the agency runs out of money on Feb. 27, even a temporary solution still seems elusive.
“I guess the lesson learned is don’t put yourself in a box you can’t figure out a way to get out of,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia, who spoke to a closed-door meeting of House Republicans to explain why the Senate had, so far, been unable to even take up their bill.
But a box is precisely where Republicans find themselves. Or, as The Wall Street Journal put it this week in an editorial that excoriated Republicans for embarking on an immigration fight that “seems headed for failure if not a more spectacular crack-up,” Republicans are now in a “box canyon” of their own making.
Senate Republicans already have failed three times to pass legislation to appropriate money for the homeland security agency because Democrats oppose provisions that would undo President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, eliminating protections for millions of undocumented immigrants, including children. Democrats have used procedural maneuvers to block the bill.
“As the governing party, we should govern,” said Senator Mark S. Kirk, a Republican from Illinois.
Newt Gingrich, who was Speaker of the House in the 1990s, had his own difficulties dealing with Republicans in the Senate. “What they don’t want to do is end up being locked into a position where they’re prepared to not fund the border patrol or not fund the TSA over what is, for most Americans, not a very clear policy fight,” he said, referring to the Transportation Security Administration. “Whichever party is in charge always finds in terms of its idea-oriented wing that the House is easier and the Senate is harder,” he added.
Senate Republicans have conceded they were “stuck” and without a way forward to prevent a shutdown of the agency at the end of the month. Boehner offered a bit of tough love: get unstuck. “We won the fight to fund the Department of Homeland Security and to stop the President’s unconstitutional actions,” he said. “You know, in the gift shop out here, they’ve got these little booklets on how a bill becomes a law, right? The House has done its job.”
Representative Mo Brooks, a Republican from Alabama, had an even harsher message for Senate Republicans. “Senator McConnell has engaged in a half-hearted effort to date,” he said. “McConnell has engaged in a policy of surrender without fighting. I’m not going to vote to fund unconstitutional conduct by Barack Obama. Period. End of subject.”
Growing increasingly frustrated, Boehner even offered some salty language from the lectern: “Why don’t you go ask the Senate Democrats when are they going to get off their ass and do something other than to vote no?” he said.
Indeed, Democrats have worked to stymie Republicans at every turn, having quickly figured out that, even though they're in the minority, they can yield significant power if they remain united. Last month, Senate Democrats banded together to force Republicans to allow them to offer more amendments on the Keystone XL pipeline legislation. And, even though several Democratic senators disagree with Obama’s 2014 executive actions on immigration, they have held to the position that they want only a “clean” spending bill. “What we’re trying to show is that, when Republicans go overboard, we’ll be united against them,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York. “When they’re willing to meet us in the middle, they’ll find a willing partner.” Schumer could not resist adding: “I’m amazed they’ve run into so much trouble so soon.”
With all sides entrenched, the finger-pointing has already begun, with Republicans correctly pointing out that Senate Democrats have not even let them bring up the bill for debate.
But Republicans are hardly winning the public relations war, in part because of their decision to include language that could lead to the deportation of the young undocumented immigrants brought here as children and known as Dreamers, something even some Republican lawmakers think is too harsh.
Some more moderate Republicans say they think that, faced with the 27 February deadline, their party will ultimately pass a more moderate bill, probably with Democratic support. “Sooner or later, we’re going to have to accept reality,” said Representative Charlie Dent, a Republican from Pennsylvania. “At some point, we’re going to have to pass something closer to a clean or cleaner bill. That’s what’s going to have to happen.”
Kirk said he thought Republicans “ought to strip the bill of extraneous issues”. The way forward, he said, “is just fund the DHS.”
In the meantime, Gingrich, who, after leading his Republican revolution in 1994 often found himself frustrated with Bob Dole, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, counseled “cheerful persistence. If I were Boehner and McConnell, I would figure out how to win my argument back home. I’d design bills to win the argument back home, and then I’d be cheerful as the Democrats insist on beating their own brains out,” Gingrich said.

Rico says the Republicans, as usual, are being hoist by their own petard...