Funny cartoon with some truth to it. Like Matthew, I'm also "neither". There are a few good Republicans, but for the most part no one in the Repub party could really turn this country around. John Boehner turned out to be a fraud who apparently could care less about stopping Obama's health care bill. The tea party movement is gaining some ground, but it's really not the way to go either. Most of them want liberty and freedom for literally everyone. Palin wants to increase the career woman movement and Ron Paul is in favor of gαy marriage and even wants to legalize smoking pot. There's no real morals in the tea party movement, it's all about freedom for everyone no matter what.
As far as the government shut-down, I have never heard of such a thing in the past. My guess is that it was a scam by Obama to get people to put more trust in him, but I haven't been following it much so I could be wrong.