“Particularly people like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas a well-known conservative with support from Tea Party supporters around the country. They are going to try to find a way to defeat, to defund, to somehow undermine the health care law. But I think one of the main lessons for the Republicans was that it was a risky strategy and that it probably hurt them in the end.

"So, I believe that the next confrontation between the two parties actually the Republicans, most of them, would be less supportive of shutting down the government to get their way. The poll numbers show Republicans were hurt by the role in the shutdown. And with elections coming up a year from now for Congress they need to be a bit more careful.”

“Now going to the Democrats, the beginning, the implementation of the Obamacare marketplace has not gone as planned. And there have been problems. How is that going to affect Democrats going forward? Is that going to be a problem for them in the future?”

“It could be a problem for them. The president’s signature achievement so far while in the White House was the health care law. There’s no doubt about that. He has politically everything invested in that. He has a lot riding on that. It’s very important that it succeed. And it’s not just for the president that this should go well, but for his Democratic allies in Congress.

"You’ll remember that when the law was passed by the Congress. It received the support of only Democrats. No Republicans supported the law. So if the implementation, the practical beginning of the law has problems, that is a problem not just for the president, but for the members of the House of Representatives, Democrats who will have to run in 2014 in the next election, and members of the Senate as well…So, they have time to fix this. But politically speaking they need to do it quickly because the public, according to the opinion polls, is already slightly against the law. They don’t like it, even though they like some parts of it, so if it continues to roll out badly then support will only weaken and it could help Republicans in Congress who keep wanting to either repeal the law or change it.”