Sarah Ferris and Burgess Everett at Politico:
Members old enough to remember the 1990s are now looking to that era’s nasty stalemate between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich as the most apt comparison to their current predicament. Even former Speaker Gingrich acknowledged to POLITICO that it’s tougher in today’s tiny GOP majority, compared to his comfortable control decades ago. Then, as he put it, he could “afford to have five or six people be idiots.” A current House Republican, Rep. John James of Michigan, had another phrase for those hardliners in his own party: “Clown caucus.” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who’s seen his party endure two lengthy funding lapses under GOP control since the Clinton years, summed up the existential dread: “All shutdowns begin with people confident that the shutdown is a good thing,” he said. “And end with people knowing that it wasn’t.”