Rove: Longer Holdout Means Weaker GOP

Republican strategist Karl Rove says the GOP should quit while it's not as far behind as it could be.

Appearing Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "On the Record," Rove said Republicans fighting for concessions on Obamacare and entitlements are weakening their position the longer they hold out.

"At some point you have to focus on, as Ronald Reagan said, getting as much of the pie as you possibly can get," Rove said.

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Republicans aren't even going to be able to get 80 percent of what they want now, he said, because they have been weakened over the last two months by fighting for something that was impossible to get: defunding Obamacare.

"And the longer this goes on, the less leverage they have," Rove said.

That's one reason Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., "threw the ball to them" and stopped Senate discussions, Rove said. Reid knew Republicans couldn't get together on a bill, he said, and wanted to weaken them further.

House Speaker John Boehner presented a bill early Tuesday that would have funded the government through mid-January and extended the debt ceiling through mid-February while talks continued, but he was unable to muster enough support to pass it.

A scheduled Tuesday night vote was called off.

Reid, Rove said, "was hoping that they wouldn't be able to coalesce behind a plan like Boehner laid out this morning with the leadership — and they haven't."

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Urgent: Should GOP Stick to Its Guns on Obamacare? Vote Here.