The suicide caucus

A minority of Republicans are attempting to pass Mitt Romney's entire platform as a quid pro quo for not driving the country over a cliff in regard to the debt limit. Although Speaker Boehner could probably get the House to pass a sensible debt ceiling measure, he won't do it if he doesn't have a majority of his caucus and has to rely on the Democrats (the so-called Hastart Rule, a purely arbitrary political ideal). Somehow, this wily, experienced politician is being held hostage by the "suicide caucus" of his own party.

Ryan Lizza: 

The ability of eighty members of the House of Representatives to push the Republican Party into a strategic course that is condemned by the party’s top strategists is a historical oddity. ....

These eighty members represent just eighteen per cent of the House and just a third of the two hundred and thirty-three House Republicans. They were elected with fourteen and a half million of the hundred and eighteen million votes cast in House elections last November, or twelve per cent of the total. In all, they represent fifty-eight million constituents. That may sound like a lot, but it’s just eighteen per cent of the population....

...these eighty members represent an America where the population is getting whiter, where there are few major cities, where Obama lost the last election in a landslide, and where the Republican Party is becoming more dominant and more popular. Meanwhile, in national politics, each of these trends is actually reversed.

...In previous eras, ideologically extreme minorities could be controlled by party leadership. What’s new about the current House of Representatives is that party discipline has broken down on the Republican side. On the most important policy questions, ones that most affect the national brand of the party, Boehner has lost his ability to control his caucus, and an ideological faction, aided by outside interest groups, can now set the national agenda.