On Sunday, NBC’s David Gregory hosted Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), and asked Coburn whether Republicans were about to face electoral Armageddon in the 2014 elections thanks to the outcome of the debt ceiling and government shutdown debate. “How much of a reckoning for the Republican Party has been experienced this week because of going up against the debt default limit and the shutdown?” Gregory asked.

Coburn, boxed in, promptly admitted defeat: “I think the fight on Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act took us off message. The large percentage of the American public knows that Washington wastes money. They just don't have a clue of how bad it really is. And so we lost the message there of what really needs to happen in Washington.”