Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor, is a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and former campaign adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell. A smarter tactic than enabling a shutdown would have been for Democrats to offer McConnell nine votes on Friday night, forcing the majority leader to come up with 51 Republican votes (which he did not have). Had the Democrats made a better strategic choice, they might have won the fight narrative. Instead, Senate Democrats owned this shutdown as headlines in various media outlets correctly assigned Schumer the blame. Interestingly, McConnell and Graham offered Schumer the three-week off ramp Friday night and he rejected it , giving his conference a weekend of pain and a bended knee on Monday.

Source: CNN January 22, 2018 21:22 UTC