Roundtable: Republicans will shoulder more blame for shutdown

Hours away from a shutdown, and House Republicans are trying to scrape together a plan to cancel the government's unscheduled vacation.

In the meantime, the GOP circular firing squad seems to be targeting the Sen. Ted Cruz wing of the party. Scott Galupo wrote Monday morning in The American Conservative, "The push to "defund," or merely delay the implementation of, Obamacare is maybe the most moronic and counterproductive gambit yet devised by the fire-breathing right flank of the congressional GOP."

There is conventional wisdom, in both the mainstream and conservative media, that Republicans will shoulder most of the blame if the government shuts down, that the whole plan was futile from the start.

"There is going to be a risk here for Republicans," said Kevin Madden, CNN political contributor and former adviser to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

But "there's too much value put in the argument that somehow Democrats and the president have a lot to gain here politically," said Madden. Americans "are going to blame all parties involved."

"It's going to hurt everybody, it's definitely going to hurt Republicans a lot more," said president of The Center for American Progress, and former domestic policy director for Obama's 2008 campaign Neera Tanden.

"What people are seeing is that there's one side that is really intransigent," said Tanden. "Every time we get to a moment like this, Republicans need more, and more scalps ... from Democrats."

The real problem for Republicans is that they did not make the case for how Obamacare is bad, and how they intend to fix it, said CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger.

For more of our political roundtable, watch the video above.