Blisters adorn the hands of Lansing's hack-class from handwringing over the looming fallout of a state government shutdown.

Coffeehouse chat swings from guile to guile wrapped in bravado.  

The truth is, no one really knows if a state government shutdown will be good or bad politics for their particular tribe.  And few things make the red-tape crowd as nervous as uncertainty.

If a shutdown occurs, the likely political impact will be determined by the manner and fashion in which it is experienced.

Meaning, the actors and filter will tell the story, not simply an event.

Scenario 1

• Democrat voices aggressively canvass the state communicating that a state government shutdown (on their watch) was an irresponsible act of Republicans captivated by corruption and catering to special interests that hurt Michigan families.  

• Republicans write "OpEds," read by the committed faithful and don't engage the debate in a meaningful way, smug with the comfort they defended the taxpayers and that their right makes might.

• Republicans aggressively communicate that the cowardly Democrat shutdown of the state, harming Michigan families, is the irresponsible act of a Party ideologically obsessed with a growing, bigger than-ever, bloated, job-killing Soviet-size state government.

• Democrats rely upon the editorial voices of the filter (MSM) and their paltry blogs, read by few and persuading even fewer.

And also obviously dependent not on a shutdown itself, but on how a shutdown is engaged.

Scenario 3

• Democrat actors engage like Scenario 1.

• Republican actors engage like Scenario 2.

State government is run by Democrat officials. It is their failure that leads to a shutdown. And voters know it is Democrat incompetence that has lead to a 7-year structurally busted budget.  

In 2008, Democrats are the incumbents on defense.

With their highest elected official having benched herself from the start of this fight, the only help Democrat candidates can get is from weak-wristed Republicans who fear the pain of popped blisters.

And the thing Democrat candidates fear the most are Republicans who have the guts to let blisters harden into calluses.