Cruz Under Fire as Shutdown Drags On

As the government shutdown enters Day 3, a solution to the deadlock doesn't look any nearer—but Ted Cruz appears to be getting less popular by the hour. Insiders say that at a meeting yesterday, the Republican senator was blasted by party members who blame him for causing the shutdown by tying a spending bill to ObamaCare. When Cruz was asked about a way out of the shutdown, sources say he came up empty. "It was very evident to everyone in the room that Cruz doesn’t have a strategy—he never had a strategy, and could never answer a question about what the end-game was," a senator who was at the meeting tells Politico. "I just wish the 35 House members that have bought the snake oil that was sold could witness what was witnessed today."

Grover Norquist, the influential president of Americans for Tax Reform, echoes the anti-Cruz sentiment in an interview with the Washington Post. While it's a good thing that all Republicans are opposed to ObamaCare, "Cruz stood on the side and confused people about the fact that every Republican agrees," Norquist says. "He said if you don’t agree with my tactic and with the specific structure of my idea, you’re bad. He said if the House would simply pass the bill with defunding he would force the Senate to act ... He pushed House Republicans into traffic and wandered away." (More government shutdown stories.)