Cruz.Senate.GovSomething weird is happening with the movement to
defund Obamacare: It’s still pressing on, despite admissions by
some of the most vocal proponents that it’s not working.

Heritage Action, the political arm of the influential
conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, has been holding
rallies across the country in hopes of bolstering support for a
defunding push in conjunction with an upcoming continuing
resolution to fund the government. This is as much an internal GOP
fight as anything: In addition to the rallies, the group is
reportedly
spending $550,000 on advertisements pushing Republicans to go
along with their plans.

What Heritage Action wants is for House Republicans to commit to
a showdown: Defund Obamacare, or refuse to pass a continuing
resolution—and shut down the federal government.

The big problem with that plan, of course, is that it doesn’t
explain how, exactly, a measure defunding the health law would get
through the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats—or, for that
matter, the White House.

The answer, it turns out, is that it wouldn’t. Asked about a
defunding bill, Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint
responded, “We wouldn’t expect Harry Reid to necessarily take
it up. But if the House passed it and sent it to the Senate, it
would give Republicans something to talk about that needs to be
done, where the majority of Americans would be on their side.”

So the plan to defund Obamacare isn’t a plan to defund
Obamacare. It’s a plan to talk about defunding Obamacare. 

DeMint mentions public support. There’s no question that polling
is a problem for the health law. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s
August health tracking
poll puts support for Obamacare at 37 percent—down eight points
since last year’s election. Some 42 percent of the public view the
law unfavorably.

But polls also show that if Republicans pursued a defunding
fight, a majority of Americans wouldn’t be on the side. Even more
tellingly, a large number of Republicans—perhaps a
majority—wouldn’t be on their side. Kaiser’s August poll finds that
57 percent of the public would disapprove of defunding the health
law. That means that defunding is even less popular than Obamacare
itself. Indeed, 34 percent of Republicans, as well as 33 percent of
those who say they view Obamacare unfavorably, say they would
oppose defunding the law.

What’s notable about this poll is that it doesn’t even mention
shutdowns, which tend to be quite unpopular. It simply asks about
defunding. 

When government shutdowns enter the equation, support erodes
even further, even amongst the GOP. Republican pollster David
Winston
asked voters what they thought of shutting down the government
to defund Obamacare and found that 71 percent of the public opposed
overall—a view shared by 53 percent of Republicans in his poll.

Congressional supporters of the defunding plan know they don’t
have what they need to make it happen. “We do not have the votes
right now,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.), whose letter kicked off the
defunding push,
admitted over the weekend.

So the Senate wouldn’t take up a defunding bill. The votes don’t
exist—not in the House, and not in the Senate. And the public isn’t
on board with the plan either. 

Why is Sen. Cruz still stumping for defund? “This fight is
likely to heat up in the month of September,” he
said on CNN over the weekend. And while the votes don’t exist
now, he said, there’s always a chance! “I believe if we see a
grass-roots tsunami, that is going to cause Republicans and
Democrats to listen to the people. … It is going to take a tsunami
and I’m going to do everything I can to encourage that
tsunami.”

That’s not very convincing. But maybe that’s not the point. The
fantasy of defunding the law via a huge popular outcry might be
comforting to some Obamacare opponents. But it’s just a
fantasy. And that means that if there’s an actual
strategy to dismantle the law, it’s also a distraction.