“You really have to call Cruz, I’m not even joking about that. That’s
really what you have to do, because he’s the one that set up the
strategy, he’s the one that got us into this mess, and so we’ve got to
know what the next move is.”

— Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), quoted by the New York Times, when asked what Republicans were going to do next in the budget standoff.

Marc Thiessen: “Quick: What do Republicans want in exchange for ending the government shutdown? If you know the answer, congratulations — because Republicans sure don’t.”

“It calls to mind the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and George are coming up with an idea for a show to pitch to NBC — and decide it will be ‘a show about nothing. That’s what this standoff has become — the Seinfeld Shutdown, a shutdown about nothing.”

“Obama presses GOP’s Boehner”

— Richmond Times Dispatch, October 4, 2013.

Democrats outlined a plan to use a “discharge petition” to force a vote to end the government shutdown. It effectively overrides House leaders by presenting a petition signed by a majority of representatives to bring a bill to vote on the floor.

Speaker John Boehner’s press secretary immediately dismissed the idea on Twitter: “Ah, the old discharge petition move. Zero percent of the time it works every time.”

Except that Digital First Media finds four high profile times the maneuver has worked in the past.

“Today, too many in our politics choose scorched earth over common ground. Many of our public debates are happening in what I like to call an evidence-free zone, where ideology trumps data and common sense. That is a recipe for paralysis, not progress.”

— Hillary Clinton, quoted by the Associated Press.

In a meeting with GOP lawmakers, Speaker John Boehner “offered no clue as to how he expected Congress to get out of the dead end it has found itself in, with the government shut for a fourth day and no clear path to raise the federal debt limit to avoid the nation’s first default,” the New York Times reports.

Said Boehner: “We are locked in an epic battle,” while urging them to “hang tough.”

“The overarching problem for the man at the center of the budget fight, say allies and opponents, is that he and his leadership team have no real idea how to resolve the fiscal showdown. They are only trying to survive another day, Republican strategists say, hoping to maintain unity as long as possible so that when the Republican position collapses, they can capitulate on two issues at once — financing the government and raising the debt ceiling — and head off any internal party backlash.”

Politico: “The speaker’s clearly been weakened internally and in public opinion — which Obama seems eager to exploit.”

“Republicans are seeking to paint Democrats as the ‘party of no’ to help dig themselves out of a hole on the government shutdown,” The Hill reports. “The effort is aimed at softening the political blow of the shutdown while buying Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) time to figure out an end game.”

“Polls show more people are blaming the GOP for the shutdown than the White House, but Republicans think their work on a stream of bills that would fund specific parts of the government is helping them build a narrative of Democratic intransigence.”

“A number of Republicans who have talked to House leadership in recent days say privately they largely stumbled into the strategy, and that there is no plan for how to end the shutdown. But they argue that by continuing their line of attack, the GOP can prevent major damage to its brand while seeking to win concessions from President Obama and Democrats on the shutdown and the debt ceiling.”

Greg Sargent: “House Democratic leaders believe they have hit on a new way to potentially force House Republican leaders into allowing a vote on a ‘clean CR’ funding the government without any defunding of Obamacare attached.”

Democrats would used a “discharge petition,” which forces a House vote if a majority of Representatives signs it, to try to force the issue.

“Previously, it was thought this could not work, because a discharge petition takes 30 legislative days to ripen, so if this were tried with the clean CR that passed the Senate, this couldn’t bear fruit until some time in November. But now House Democrats say they have found a previously filed bill to use as a discharge petition — one that would fund the government at sequester levels.”

Roll Call has more on the procedural move.

Robert Costa: “It hasn’t been announced, and you won’t hear about it today, but the final volley of the fiscal impasse, at least for House Republicans, is already being brokered. And according to my top sources — both members and senior aides — it won’t end with a clean CR, or with a sprawling, 2011-style budget agreement. It’ll end with an offer — a relatively modest mid-October offer that concurrently connects a debt-limit extension, government funding, and a small, but strategically designed menu of conservative demands.”

“There is a growing acceptance, especially among the leading players, that the debt-limit talks will soon blend into the shutdown talks and force Republicans to negotiate a delicate peace that can win the support of a majority of the conference (or close to it), as well as a smattering of Democrats.”

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.