It’s all over for Obama or Boehner. But which one blinks?

One of the dynamics shaping this week’s government shutdown — indeed, perhaps the single most important dynamic — is the fact that the nation’s two most important political leaders have their backs squarely set against the wall.

The top Republican in the US, House Speaker John Boehner, has held tenuously to power ever since the mid-term elections of 2010 swept his party to a majority.

He has, despite criticism from the right and the left, done a reasonably masterful job of using a weak position to thwart and hamper Barack Obama’s presidency.

It’s fair to argue whether those goals are laudable.  And it’s fair to debate whether Mr. Boehner might have served the country better by passing meaningful legislation — including common sense reforms to the Affordable Care Act.

But given his fractured caucus, and the increasingly rigid ideological posture of his base, that was probably never in the cards.

Instead, Mr. Boehner moved with real strategic skill to clip the wings of a Democratic presidency which from November 2008 through the end of 2010 struck many as the second coming of Camelot.

That agenda didn’t make him popular and it didn’t endear Republicans or Congress to Americans, but it was profoundly effective.

But that game is now played out.  Mr. Boehner’s caucus is hungry not just for clipped wings and minor tactical victories, but for a full-on turkey shoot.

They want Obamacare eviscerated, and they want a divided political culture in Washington to deliver historic conservative gains — changing everything from abortion rules to Social Security entitlements to the Keystone XL pipeline and expanded offshore oil drilling.

All that with a Democrat in the White House and Democrats holding a solid majority in the US Senate.

Unless Mr. Boehner can deliver — or at least prove somehow that he’s not the one who blinked — his balancing act as House Speaker is probably at an end.

On other other end of Pennsylvania Avenue sits another politician with his back against the wall.

To the dismay of his supporters, Barack Obama turned out long ago to be more of a talker and a compromiser than a fighter.

In the aftermath of the Bush years, a lot of liberals — and even many centrists — wanted a two-fisted Democrat in the mold of Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman.

Instead, they got a technocrat, an academic, a guy perfectly comfortable working in the gray zone, satisfied with good deals even when they’re not great deals.

Despite Republican rhetoric to the contrary, the facts just don’t bear out the idea that this White House is a my-way-or-the-highway kind of operation.

The Affordable Care Act itself is a dogs breakfast of compromise, a mish-mash of liberal goals (bringing healthcare to as many Americans as possible) and conservative strategies (partnering with private insurance companies and adopting an individual insurance mandate).

But my sense is that Mr. Obama has reached a sort of Rubicon with his party and his own left-leaning base.

If the President folds, or even gives symbolic ground, under this kind of bare-knuckled tea party pressure, he certainly won’t be driven out of office.  That’s not how our non-parliamentary system works.

But make no mistake:  Mr. Obama’s presidency would effectively be over.

His chief legislative victory, Obamacare, would be dismantled.  His position in future negotiations with Republicans would be crippled to an almost laughable degree.  His trust-level among Democrats would be flat-line.

So with two cornered politicians, where do we find ourselves?

I think most pundits would say that at this point, Mr. Obama has a slight advantage.  His position as president is politically more stable than that of Mr. Boehner, who as House Speaker works from an inherently dodgy position of authority.

And for all their protestations to the contrary, it is Republicans who chose this moment and this ground upon which to fight.  Polls show that that decision galls many voters.

But the outcome is by no means sure and people behave in unpredictable ways when  placed between a rock and a hard place.

These two powerful men know that when the government does finally reopen, one of them will almost certainly be left behind , by their party and by history.

Tags: boehner, government shut down, politics