Nobody yet knows with certainty how the government shutdown will be settled, but some lessons are evident even now. The first of these is the need for Republicans of all stripes to get over 1995. As former New York Times data guru Nate Silver pointed out this week, there is precious little empirical evidence to support the conventional wisdom that Republicans suffered immense damage from the 1995-96 shutdowns.

In some respects, the GOP’s poll standing at a similar juncture then was even worse than it is today, but when all the votes were counted in the 1996 elections, Republicans still comfortably controlled both houses of Congress and Bill Clinton easily defeated Bob Dole to retain the White House for Democrats. In other words, the 1995-96 shutdown had, at most, a minimal impact on either party’s electoral fortunes.