Persistent threats of a Tea Party Republican primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford appeared to have had the desired effect.

Crawford seems to have gone all in with the teabaggers on the notion that it’s better to shut down the government or wreck the U.S. markets than allow Obamacare to go forward unfettered. His opposition includes kind words for even the filibuster plan of Sen. Ted Cruz, a step even many Republicans think extreme.

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This from a KUAR report. It quotes Crawford — from some distant universe — with the opinion that the Democratic-controlled Senate might pass a House Republican budget that strips money from Obamacare.

“This could actually pass and the fact of the matter is that we need some folks in the Senate to help us help them. You’re going to probably see some folks take to the floor, possibly filibuster,” said Crawford.

Crawford said it’s wrong to characterize a shutdown as the fault of Republicans, “That question is something that needs to be directed to Harry Reid and the President. Essentially the ball is in their court. Are they going to stand on ideological ground like they’re accusing us of doing?”

It’s so far out it hardly bears extensive analysis. Obamacare is the law of the land. If Republicans want to repeal the law of the land they need majority votes in both houses of Congress to do so. If Republicans refuse to pass a federal budget rather than accept a law  they don’t have the votes to repeal, it is THEIR fault. Rick Crawford’s fault. Tim Griffin’s fault. Tom Cotton’s fault.

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Rep. Steve Womack and Sen. John Boozman get a temporary pass from insanity caucus membership because they claim to understand the recklessness of the path Crawford has now joined along with Griffin and Cotton. Doesn’t mean they won’t vote with the Insanity Caucus when the roll is called, however.

PS: Want to read about a Republican who makes sense? From Oklahoma? Read about Rep. Tom Cole. From a Washington Post profile:

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For constituents urging a government shutdown over the health care law, he warned that it would doubly backfire by hurting local residents like the workers at nearby Tinker Air Force Base, and by heaping blame on Republicans. A party controlling neither the White House nor the Senate, he said, lacks the power to reverse a White House incumbent’s foremost domestic achievement, no matter how often the House votes to do so.

“It’s awfully hard to repeal Obamacare when a guy named Obama is president of the United States,” he said. “We’re in a position to stop a lot of what he wants to do. We’re not in a position to undo.”

Tell it to Cotton-Griffin-Crawford.

PPS — Tom Cole is not a liberal.

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