Jonathan Chait: “Republicans are looking to make a budget deal now because they want to escape the political nightmare they’ve created for themselves. They blustered into a shutdown that corrodes their party brand and cracks the door to flip the House, which ought to be otherwise impregnable in a low-turnout midterm election. They can’t figure out how to back down without winning concessions the Democrats have no incentive to give them. Then they need to lift the debt ceiling, where they’ve raised even loftier expectations, and where the Democrats are even more determined not to be held hostage. Their only way out is to fold everything into a negotiation, give the Democrats something, and hold up whatever they win as a trophy that made it all worthwhile.”

The Week: How the GOP painted itself into a corner on the shutdown

“This isn’t some damn game. The American people don’t want their government shut down and neither do I.”

— Speaker John Boehner, quoted by Roll Call, telling his GOP colleagues he will not “roll over” to President Obama.

The Washington Post has the latest whip count.

National Journal: “At this historic moment of deep partisan division on
the Hill, House Republicans are more unified than they have been in
recent memory. This solidarity bodes well for Boehner and his
speakership, but it portends a protracted shutdown that is unlikely to
end until Democrats somehow offer something acceptable to the
conservative majority in the House GOP.”

Said Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL): “He’s leading. That’s the biggest thing … that he’s actually leading. He listened to membership, and he’s put himself out there, and he’s standing strong. We’re all so proud of him right now.”

“I need my paycheck. That’s the bottom line. I understand that there may be some other members who are deferring their paychecks, and I think that’s admirable. I’m not in that position.”

— Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), in an interview with WTVD-TV, on needing to be paid during the government shutdown she supported.

USA Today: “As the
government shutdown enters its fourth day, Obama and White House
officials will have to weigh carefully just how hard they want to push
Boehner, who is under intense pressure from the most conservative
lawmakers in his party to not capitulate to a president who says he will
not negotiate over either a short-term continuing resolution to keep
the government open or the looming debt limit. In the end, political
analysts say, it is in the interest of the White House to find a way for
Boehner to emerge out of the crisis with some credibility with his
rank-and-file, as the alternative to the Ohio lawmaker that could emerge
from the Republican caucus may be far less tolerable.”

A senior administration official tells the Wall Street Journal: “We are winning…It doesn’t really matter to us” how long the shutdown lasts “because what matters is the end result.”