Far be it from me to agitate against the shutting down of the federal government — heck, the very words fill me with joy — but I’m afraid that we must take with a regretful pinch of salt new a poll from our friends over at Heritage that purports to show that the public is on their side. Heritage asked whether, in order to “get President Obama to agree to at least have a ‘time out’ on implementing the health care law and its full effects,” participants would approve of ”a temporary slowdown in non-essential government operations, which still left all essential government services operating” 59 percent agreed that they would. From this, Heritage concluded, ”House Majority Not At Stake Over Defund Of Obamacare.”

The problem here is twofold. First, the question is insulated from the rough and tumble of politics. Republicans can portray the matter in the best possible light within the sterilized and sealed walls of the polling room, but we all know full well that the moment the Democratic party starts to portray a government shutdown as the end of the world as we know it and the media begins interviewing nervous elderly people who wouldn’t even be affected, the issue at hand will change dramatically in the minds of the public. Second, that Heritage could only get 59 percent of respondents to agree to such a generously worded question should deeply worry shutdown advocates. Nine percent is really not much of a buffer on an issue as visceral as this. To go into something so risky with any sort of confidence, the GOP would need to return to its old rule of picking 70–30 issues — and this, I’m afraid, is not one. (Remember, too, that even back when the Contract with America generation was killing it on such issues, its momentum was halted – perhaps permanently – by . . . a government shutdown.)

My sympathies lie squarely with Heritage on the questions of Obamacare and of the size and role of the state. I consider it patently absurd that the prospect of the government shutting down a few of its services is met with wailing and nashing of teeth in a free country, and I am as set against Obamacare as anybody else. But tactics matter and, contrary to Heritage’s ostensibly comforting poll, the chances of Republicans prevailing if they take this route are sadly slim.