Observations:
Sensible Republican commentators (and sorry, they do exist) realize this is precisely the wrong way to get rid of "Obamacare". They note the obvious: that the GOP must win the next election, and probably the Senate too, to do it .
The GOP, in theory dominated by the Tea Party and therefore against the alleged terrible current abuse of government to oppress the helpless citizenry, is more than willing to fund quite a few areas of government, starting with the military and national parks but there's a long list more. So it's not government they are against but only the parts they don't like--and they will more than glad to tell us which parts. So to give in to this is to have not majority rule but rule by a mindless minority.
This one is my favorite: They claim that one of the main goals is to save taxpayers' money. Yet the recent House vote on reimbursing federal employees now not being paid was--guess what--unanimous.
So where are those brave frugal souls who want to save the taxpayers' money? Not one actually had the guts to put his or her name on the line opposing reimbursement. The most courage they could muster is to abstain.
Face it, the votes of federal employees--and those who realize that government is not, per se, evil--outweigh by a huge margin the views of any allegedly principled voter who is passionate to see government shrunk dramatically, even at the expense of benefits that voter receives from government.
And GOP politicians know where the votes in the general election are--and after having postured for the benefit of the Know-Nothing wing of the party, with its true believers who exert outsized influence in primary season--are more than willing to show us they know where the votes really are. The only question is how long they think they have to posture to cut off a primary challenge from the Right.
But, as Bobert and some others have already noted, shutting down the government, for any reason, is just not a winning election issue. They have learned nothing from 1995.
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sj