“Ted Cruz is taking his hardball tactics to a whole new level,” Politico writes. “The Texas freshman senator and his senior aides are unleashing a barrage of attacks on their fellow Republicans for refusing to support their plan to choke off Obamacare as a condition for funding the government. Cruz’s chief of staff is lambasting fellow conservatives like Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn for serving in the ‘surrender caucus.’ His top political strategist has compared Mitch McConnell to Barack Obama. And the senator himself has said many Republicans are ‘scared’ to wage this fight. The results have sparked something of a GOP civil war over an issue that, ironically, the GOP is united behind — repealing Obamacare. Cruz’s strategy is a departure from the usually clubby chamber, as he’s grown increasingly alienated from his caucus.”
“Americans have historically low views of Congress, but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says Republicans have fueled that disgust for political reasons and Democrats can win elections by highlighting GOP obstructionism. ‘Nothing deters voting more than confusion, 'a pox on both your houses,' and that confusion is one of the successes of the Republican Party, to make it look equivalent in terms of who is holding up jobs. It's not equivalent, and we have to make that clear to the American people,’ Pelosi said Tuesday at a meeting with the USA TODAY editorial board.”
That’s a sentiment the venerable Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein wrote in the Washington Post in April 2012: “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.”