Would Republicans really shut down the government to stop ObamaCare?

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is leading a GOP push in Senate to shut down the government in the fall to prevent the implementation of looming reforms under President Obama's health care law. Lee, a Tea Party hero, told Fox News on Monday that refusing to fund ObamaCare was the last remaining way to stop the law's individual mandate and insurance exchanges from launching at the start of next year.

In theory, Republicans could pull it off by blocking a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Such a drastic move, just months before the beginning of a mid-term election year, is bound to be controversial with voters who are growing tired of partisan dysfunction in Washington.

Will the GOP make good on the threat?

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The conventional wisdom is that the party leadership — specifically Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — want to avoid this kind of destructive spectacle. Rick Moran at The American Thinker says, however, that they might not have much choice. "Both leaders," he says, "face a revolt of their members if they don't pull the trigger."

Not everyone is so apocalyptic, though. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), for example, told conservative talk-show host Michael Medved that he would love to repeal ObamaCare, but blocking it in a fight over the debt limit and keeping the government funded is out of the question. "So some would like to set up another one of these shutdown-the-government threats," he said. "And most Americans are really tired of those kinds of shenanigans here in Washington."

The party's base is exerting tremendous pressure on Republican lawmakers to do something, though. "The GOP has managed to talk itself into a very firm belief that this national version of Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health plan is a satanic abomination," says Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly. The leadership does not have much time to sell its troops on something other than the nuclear option.