The Democrats are perfectly content to have a shutdown because they assume Republicans will be blamed. They could be wrong – it will be a fluid situation and things could bounce in an unexpected way – but it’s not a bad bet. The media, as Mark Halperin said this morning, will take the Democratic line during a shutdown, and given that Republicans are the anti-government party, there will be a natural tendency on the part of the public to believe they are solely responsible. I still think that House Republicans could trump the Senate Democrats if they made the fight about the Vitter amendment, and then go into the debt-limit fight without having suffered a damaging defeat over the CR, but no one seems to know what will be the House’s next move.