By Chris Moody, Yahoo News
When Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz began his 21-hour speech on the Senate floor in protest of Obamacare, the Republican National Committee, seeing an opportunity to rally supporters and donors, quickly got behind him.
The party's website launched a Stand With Ted page to collect signatures, and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus penned a letter in support of the freshman lawmaker.
“In a fight between Harry Reid and Ted Cruz, I will stand with Ted Cruz any day,” Priebus wrote. “Today, Senator Cruz has taken the fight to defund ObamaCare to the Senate floor. I hope you will join me in standing with him in solidarity.”
Cruz had recently led a coalition of conservative lawmakers to persuade House GOP leaders to scrap their original plans and adopt his quixotic scheme to refuse to fund the government unless Obamacare was defunded. The government shut down for 16 days as a result.
Even after the shutdown began, the RNC continued to offer support for lawmakers who wanted to keep up the fight against Obamacare. But it had to do so without appearing to take sides when an internal spat broke out in the GOP over tactics. A group of Republicans who were growing disenchanted with the Cruz strategy wanted to strike a deal and reopen the government.
