The Debt Ceiling Poll Question That Will Make Republicans Extremely Depressed

Republicans have argued and convinced themselves that they're fighting a popular fight on the debt ceiling.

That's because, despite the fact that pundits/economists/everyone says a failure to raise the debt ceiling would be disastrous, Americans say they DON'T want it raised. 60% (!) say they don't want it raised.

But here's the catch.

Although Americans don't want the debt ceiling raised, and although Republicans are the ones against a clean raise, look what poll respondents say when asked who should get the blame if the debt ceiling isn't hiked, and payments for crucial services are halted.

This is from a new NBC/WSJ poll. 45% of respondents would blame the GOP. Just 33% would blame Obama and Congressional Democrats.

This seems contradictory, of course, but it's really not that weird.

People don't get what the debt ceiling is. It sounds like a good thing... a tool to keep the government fiscally prudent, which it's not.

But people do seem to grasp that the GOP is on a dangerous kamikaze mission. So even though the GOP is ostensibly on the same side as people on the debt limit, they can't win by going all the way.

If we wake up one day, and we've hit the "x-date" it will be the GOP taking most of the blame.