On Wednesday, NH GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte urged Sen. Ted Cruz to not utilize his rights to object to a Senate deal reopening the government and lifting the debt ceiling. To quickly approve a deal, the Senate needs unanimous consent. If any Senator objects to the deal, the Senate would have to invoke cloture, adding a couple days until final passage of a deal.
Appearing on CNN, Ayotte said, “I would hope that he wouldn’t [delay a vote]. I mean in the Senate, obviously, in terms of certain time frames, senators can cause you to run out the clock. But what is he trying to gain at this point?”
The nation doesn’t default if a deal isn’t reached by the Thursday debt ceiling deadline. The federal government would have enough cash to meet its obligations for one to two weeks.
Ayotte doesn’t see a point in objecting, since a deal is certain to pass in the coming days. Sen. Cruz, however, launched his fight to draw attention to the negative consequences of ObamaCare. Prior to the opening of the exchanges on October 1, Cruz’s warnings were an argument. After the debacle of the launch of ObamaCare, his warnings are settling into facts.
Republicans like Ayotte, who are eager to put this debate behind them, are annoyed that Sen. Cruz or other Senators may exercise their rights in the Senate and delay a deal for a few days. She is even more annoyed that we had the debate in the first place. “It was an ill-conceived strategy from the beginning, not a winning strategy.”
Cruz’s strategy, however, was certainly undercut by friendly fire from Republican Senators who paraded before TV cameras to criticize the freshman Senator. Sen. John McCain went so far as to deliver a scathing rebuke of Cruz on the Senate floor, just moments after Cruz ended a 21-hour marathon detailing the dangers of ObamaCare.
That certainly isn’t a winning strategy, either.
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