Senator Charles Schumer has signed the Bennet letter on the public option. That brings the total number of Democratic Senators open to using reconciliation to finish health reform up to 32, and the number in favor of using the public option in that process up to 18. See the whip count here.
We also have a response from Senator Maria Cantwell's office. Open Left user RubyK writes in:
XXX from Cantwell's office got back to me. His short answer was "we're studying it with caution"
His longer answer was:
Senator's been in Washington state, doing business there and he hasn't checked in with her on this yet. She will be back in Washington [DC] next week.
"We're studying it with caution" b/c she's had and expressed concerns for using reconciliation for larger sweeping changes.
As a general rule doesn't want to use a process to end run, use something like reconcilliation to pass something so big.
He told me: she hasn't given up on health care, and reminded me she's a supporter of public option
He lastly suggested this to me, one of her reasons for hesitation on reconciliation generally would be that it would create a ten year sunset, which would make it more unstable, and with the health care system needing stability, going back to this in ten years might cause more problems.
Well, at least it wasn't a no. Even if that isn't the sort of answer we wanted, it is still useful information. Cantwell appears to be one of the recalcitrant Dems on reconciliation.
If your want to help push the undecided Senators in the right direction, click here to contact one of them.
The most conservative committee in Congress is finally getting ready to consider the first public votes on the public option, with amendments by Schumer and Rockefeller that will likely be considered on Tuesday. The Finance Committee, led by two of the most conservative Democrats in the House or Senate -- Max Baucus and Kent Conrad -- will be the first place the public option finally sees the light of day, getting debate and votes in front of everyone.
Given the poll numbers, and Baucus' past statements supporting the public option, you would think this would be a no-brainer, that no Democrat would want to risk alienating voters who overwhelmingly support it, or the fired-up party activists and donors who have been passionately fighting for it for months. Look at the polling analysis just done by Health Care for America Now:
Support for Individual Mandate Contingent on Public Option: The polls, conducted by Anzalone Liszt Research and Lake Research Partners for Health Care for America Now in mid-September, each found that likely 2010 voters oppose "requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a private health insurance plan" but support "requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a health insurance plan with a choice between a public option and private insurance plans." A mandate that individuals have coverage or pay a fine is a key feature of health care reform proposals that require insurance companies to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions.
Nationally, voters oppose a mandate to purchase private insurance by 64% to 34% but support a mandate with a choice of private or public insurance by 60% to 37%.
"Requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a private health insurance plan"
National: Oppose 64% to 34%
House Swing: Oppose 60% to 34%
Maine: Oppose 55% to 35%
"Requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a health insurance plan with a choice between a public option and private insurance plans"
National: Favor 60% to 37%
House Swing: Favor 50% to 46%
Maine: Favor 55% to 40%
Note: In all three polls, half of those surveyed were asked each question.
All of the health care reform proposals that have passed Congressional committees to date, including three House committees and the Senate HELP Committee, include an individual mandate and the choice of private or public health insurance. The Chairman's mark introduced into the Senate Finance Committee includes the individual mandate without the choice of a public health insurance option.
With numbers like this, and with the entire Democratic base mobilized intensely around the issue, you would have to be politically tone deaf as a Democrat to oppose this, but this is the Senate Finance Committee, so public option advocates are likely to lose these votes. The question, though, will be the margin. On a committee this conservative, far more conservative than the Senate as a whole, if we only get seven votes for the public option amendments, that would have to be considered a major political victory, and a sign that the public option can definitely get a majority vote on the floor.
Of course, the traditional media won't report it that way -- anything that goes against their cast-in-iron conventional wisdom belief that the public option is dead will not be reported. Chuck Schumer nailed it last night on Rachel Maddow: this is just the first step, in the most conservative possible setting. This vote is all about laying the ground work for the Senate floor fight and the conference committee fight after that, both of which are far more favorable to public option advocates. With polling numbers like those above, and an activist base on fire on this issue, it is going to be more and more difficult for Democrats to vote against the public option when they have to vote in the light of day.
About an hour ago, the NY Times published this piece indicating mostly unnamed Senate Democrats are now strongly considering using reconciliation to pass a bill containing a public option:
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats said Sunday that they were fleshing out plans to pass health legislation, particularly the option of a new government-run insurance program, with a simple majority, instead of the 60 votes that would ordinarily be needed to overcome a filibuster.
After consulting experts in Senate rules and procedure, the Democrats said they were increasingly confident that they could legislate creation of a public plan in a way that would withstand challenges expected from Republicans.
The article goes on to recap Charles Schumer's surprisingly strong pro-public option comments this morning on MTP.
Adding onto that, TomP at DailyKos reports (h/t fladem in quick hits) that Max Baucus has come out in support of a public option.
Meanwhile, CNN reports (among others) on Sen Lieberman's remarks against using reconciliation. No need to quote him, he's very serious and very concerned.
It's hard not to see these things as being connected. Schumer's support was nice to see, then Baucus' sudden break in favour of the PO, and now (most significant, I think), Lieberman's sudden vocal opposition to reconciliation indicates there is something more to this than a trial balloon through the NY Times. In addition to hailing from an insurance heavy state, Lieberman was well positioned to make demands for his support on cloture for the bill if the 60 vote rules are kept. At 51, his ability to do so is much weaker.
The public plan must be self-sustaining. It should pay claims with money raised from premiums and co-payments. It should not receive tax revenue or appropriations from the government.
The public plan should pay doctors and hospitals more than what Medicare pays. Medicare rates, set by law and regulation, are often lower than what private insurers pay.
The government should not compel doctors and hospitals to participate in a public plan just because they participate in Medicare.
To prevent the government from serving as both "player and umpire," the officials who manage a public plan should be different from those who regulate the insurance market.
From a policy perspective, none of this is particularly controversial, actually.
Schumer is proposing a public health insurance plan, run by the government, that breaks the private insurance monopoly we have today. His policy prescriptions do not turn the public health insurance plan into a meaningless proposal. Here's why, point by point.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) believes that failed "zombie" banks, no matter what their size, should be taken over by the government, which should then wipe out shareholders, fire management, clean up the banks and quickly resell them into the marketplace. Such a move, he cautioned, should come only if the "stress tests" being conducted by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner determine a bank to be insolvent.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Schumer sought to clarify and elaborate on widely-reported comments he made last Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
During the show, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, turned a few heads by stating that nationalizing the banks should be a policy option on the table.
Responding a few moments later, Schumer said on ABC, "I would not be for nationalizing. I don't think government is good at making these decisions."
In addition to growing support for the "Swedish" nationalization model (depicted in the first blockquote paragraph), it is also becoming clear that whether or not Treasury Secretary Geithner intended the "stress test" to be a back door toward nationalization, it almost certainly will become a back door toward nationalization. By early to mi-April, when the stress test and quarterly reports show which banks are solvent and which are not, there just won't be any other options left from either a pure policy or political perspective.
Perhaps one of the keys to pushing nationalization over the finish line is, as Atrios and Josh Marshall both suggest, to stop calling it nationalization. In order to win this fight, perhaps something like "the receivership plan" or "the Swedish model" should become standard lingo for all of those who favor what we are now terming "nationalization."
One item that likely will be discussed is an amendment that would add billions of dollars to infrastructure projects. Nelson is crafting that measure with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, both on the Appropriations Committee.
Although Nelson's support for this amendment comes with a catch:
And Nelson doesn't want to stop there. He wants to pluck out what he says are extraneous projects in the stimulus bill to pay for the amendment. Providing hundreds of millions of dollars for prevention of smoking and sexually-transmitted disease -- though they may be worthy causes -- does not create jobs. Nelson even is willing to remove popular Pell Grant increases, saving them for annual spending bills later in the year.
Nelson's position on this makes no sense. He wants to spend money to prevent smoking, STDs, and to support Pell Grants, but he doesn't want those expenditures in this specific bill? My question is, if you are going to support both spending on X and spending on Y this year, why do you care about the name of the bills used to pass X an Y? That is just pointless labeling. If you are going to support them both, then it really doesn't matter which bills they are passed under. Unless, of course, you don't actually intend on supporting X or Y later on.
Anyway, I am thinking that we should push for the Murray-Feinstein-Nelson amendment for increased infrastructure spending, just as we did the Nadler rail amendment. Of course, we won't do it if it comes with the strings that Nelson wants to attach to it. What say you?
So the deal fell apart. I reported this first, and because I was out on a limb I was getting pressure from various insider operatives throughout the day telling me that I was wrong, that there was a deal in place. I knew that Pelosi was negotiating with her own caucus at 3pm for a meeting with Bush at 4pm, so how could there be a settled deal in place? Nevertheless, it's a scary place to be to directly contradict political leaders because you look really really stupid if you're wrong, and it's not like I have an institution to bail me out when I'm wrong. Note that even reporters scared to say what was right in front of them; they were putting into their stories that points of contention hadn't been ironed out even as they titled their stories 'deal reached' and started them with four paragraphs on how a deal had been hashed out. And now all of a sudden it 'fell apart'.
This happened with FISA as well. Steny Hoyer kept saying 'we're near a deal' every few days, and eventually after getting it wrong for months, it came true. It seems like Democratic political leaders are more interested in cutting deals just to cut deals, they like forming gangs in the Senate and just generally passing legislation. It is how they see their job, it is what they do, it is in many ways who they are. Let's just get something done, and by that they mean 'let's eat some shit and pass a bill'. Don't stand in their way because then you're making things 'too political'.
That's why they are angry at McCain and the House GOP for screwing this up. Now I'm mad at McCain because he's crazy and wants to use this chance to cut more taxes (and probably start another war if he can). But that's not what these bureaucratic Democratic leaders dislike; they had a deal that the leadership thought it could shove down the throats of the caucus, the Bush Dogs being the only group that willingly enjoys eating shit. They had cut a deal. A deal. Don't you understand, they were going to pass something, get something done, isn't that awesome?
And so they are mad that McCain came in their and injected 'Presidential politics' into the negotiations and fucked it all up. Another way of looking at it is that McCain saw the writing on the wall, decided that he wanted to take advantage of a sour public mood, and acted like a narcissistic drama queen. But on one level he's right. Politics is how we're going to solve this, there's an election in forty days and the public is going to be able to weigh in. And that's how it should be, that's called democracy.
I'm watching CNN. Wow, Schumer is taking McCain to task for injecting himself into delicate negotiations after not being involved at all, and is asking him to go away. He calls McCain's move a cheap political stunt.
Wolf Blitzer keeps saying that McCain has made a 'blockbuster move' by suspending his campaign. This is so stupid. At least tonight we can look forward to Bush going on TV at 9pm ET to annoy everyone.
Schumer also floated the notion of giving the Treasury a portion of the $700 billion now and revisiting the success of the program in January. But Paulson was not as supportive.
"I think that would be a grave mistake," the secretary said. "This is about market confidence, and we need to have the tools to do it right."
Senator Chuck Schumer calls on McCain to release his medical records.
Senator Harry Reid calls on McCain to release his medical records.
John Aravosis noted that McCain didn't tell anyone he had cancer surgery during the Republican primary, but waited until after he won to admit he had surgery to remove cancerous cells. 1,954 doctors have already signed the open letter to McCain asking him to release his medical records (via KathyG). And I took video of Senator Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer calling on McCain to release his medical records. Here's the transcript:
Question: What do you think the relevance of John McCain's cancer is on this election?
Schumer: I don't know the relevance but I will say this. When you're running for President everything should be public including your full medical records. I believe in the right to privacy but when you're running for President which is such an important job the need of the public to know supercedes it.
Question: What is the relevance of John McCain's cancer to this election?
Answer: When we're talking about the President of the United States, health issues are extremely important. We learned that going back a long time ago, when you guys weren't around, when Tom Eagleton because of his depression had had shock treatment. So this isn't something we just dreamed up, it's important, Eagleton had to drop out, and select a new Vice Presidential nominee. So I think there should be total transparency when a person is running for President of the United States. And it may be when President Bush went and had some things burned off of his head or John McCain a month ago had a little thing burned off his face. I think it's important.
Well I suppose it's not a surprise that Obama is going to be our nominee, with him claiming a majority of pledged delegates. What is odd is how badly the Clinton campaign is performing; Hillary Clinton, though pretty much no one else in the campaign, must still believe she can win, because going into a $31M debt at this point makes no sense otherwise.
Jeff Merkley narrowly won the primary against Steve Novick. Novick pledged to help Merkley. Congratulations, Senate Guru, your guy won, and Merkley's pretty progressive. Now let's beat Smith in the fall.
Lunsford beat Fischer by 51-33. Fischer just did not have enough time to make this competitive.
Minority Leader Boehner wants illegal wiretapping protections and $1M for himself.
We're at 60 contributors for our OpenLeft fundraiser. That's amazing. Join in and help us expand this summer as the general election ramps up. Whatever you can throw in, even if it's a small amount, makes a difference. And thanks to everyone who has chipped in so far.
Here's Jay Inslee on the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.
Paul Tewes will apparently take over from Howard Dean at the DNC when Obama formally takes the nomination.
The new SUSA poll in Kentucky is out, and Lunsford is way up, 47-26. Fischer has actually lost ground since the last poll, and Lunsford has consolidated his support. Lunsford will be the Democratic nominee in Kentucky, which is a shame. Establishments are strong, and Chuck Schumer wins a lot, though this one is going to end up with Mitch McConnell staying in the Senate.
Novick leads Merkley by 29 percent to 23 percent among likely Democratic voters, but 43 percent of the voters are still undecided. The poll has a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points, meaning the numbers could be off by that amount in either direction.
Undecideds are the overwhelming proportion of the vote, so the ground game is incredibly important. Who has the activists, and who is handing out flyers to uncommitted Obama supporters? I'm going to guess Novick is the candidate of change, but it's a guess.
The DSCC has been buying time in Oregon to soften up Republican Senator Gordon Smith, who is one of the most moderate Republican Senators out there and who will probably lose in November (he's below 50 against both Democrats running against him). Oregon has a particularly genteel political culture, with the incumbent Democrat, Ron Wyden, refusing to campaign against Gordon Smith. This gentility, though, masks a strong establishment culture that is helping Jeff Merkley stay in the primary against a much more charismatic and interesting candidate, Steve Novick.
The primary is getting somewhat nasty, though after it's over the party should rally around the eventual winner. One of Merkley's consultants actually ripped off the design work of one of Novick's staffers in putting together the attack site Novick InsultsDemocrats, a site listing the litany of criticisms Novick has leveled against Democrats for their failure to stand tall enough against George W. Bush. It's rather interesting, actually; Merkley's implicit argument is that criticism of Democrats is bad, whereas Novick's activist background is considered a liability. Merkley's record as the Speaker of the House in Oregon is set against Novick's quirky career pushing from the outside.
The Senate Guru and MyDD, along with the DSCC, are more sympathetic to Merkley. The DSCC has actually set up Merkley with around $100k in help.
It's not news that House Speaker Jeff Merkley was recruited to run for the U.S. Senate by officials from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and that the committee staffers helped stage his campaign kickoff in September.
It turns out that it was nearly 100k worth of help. The Bend Bulletin (subscription fee required) reports that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee paid $73,000 to an Arkansas company for an advance team to help stage his kickoff as well as $20,000 for research.
People like Sherrod Brown (who apparently attempted to recruit progressive establishment Oregonian Senate candidates), Chuck Schumer, and the existing Senatorial class do not quite want to believe that Novick has a chance. He's four foot eleven and he has a hook for his left hand, and has released a set of interesting and quirky campaign commercials. Novick has a variety of impolitique statements out in public, including attacks on Barack Obama. Merkley is much more establishment oriented, though progressive.
This is a fascinating contest of an establishment-progressive versus an activist-progressive. While I have a great deal of sympathy for Merkley and his adherents, I support Novick in this race. Sherrod Brown was celebrated as a great progressive hero in 2006, and he has begun to carve out a nice path in the Senate. But I've also been in meetings with his staffers, and they are extremely clear that his first priority is working the local politics of Ohio. It is a perfectly reasonable, even good, political choice. Brown builds coalitions for his state, he does not put up censure resolutions like Russ Feingold. It is my belief that Novick would be a politician more like Russ Feingold, and that Merkley would be more like Brown.
At this moment in history, we need more Steve Novick's. Congress must be full of troublemakers, people willing to reclaim Congress's role as a co-equal branch by bucking the status quo, by speaking plainly, and by being a little different.
I just got a form fundraising email from JB Poersch, the head of the DSCC and Chuck Schumer's acolyte. Poersch is quite good at political strategy, and he's discussing Senate candidate Kay Hagen in North Carolina versus Liddy Dole as 'the sleeper' race of 2008. It might be, and could bring us to 58 or 59 in the Senate. Much as the open secret of South Carolina is that Lindsay Graham is closeted, the open secret of North Carolina is that Liddy Dole is senile. She could lose if she acts too much like a bumbler.
Here's Poersch:
Kay Hagan is a great Democrat and a great candidate to topple Dole. As a leader in the state Senate, she has developed a statewide reputation as a moderate who can run and win in November. Her favorability ratings are already as high as Dole's, and Hagan doesn't carry nearly the same level of unfavorable baggage.
That said, Hagen supported retroactive immunity for telecom companies, didn't know if she would support Mukasey for Attorney General, and would not support children's health care (SCHIP) if it were funded by tobacco taxes (unlike the rest of NC's Congressional delegation). She might be a good Democrats, but she's also conservative.
Party organizations like the DSCC support conservative ideas because it is easier to raise money from business with conservative candidates while going to liberals, offering nothing and saying 'we need to get to 60'. There's going to be a lot of chatter about getting to 60 votes in the Senate, and there's a good reason to want to get there to break filibusters. But the reality is that the Senate is going to be conservative regardless of whether we're at 60 votes or 58, with people like Max Baucus Chairing powerful committees. We need more liberals in the Senate, not just more Democrats. We ought to go directly to the more liberal Senate candidates, like Al Franken in Minnesota, Novick/Merkley in Oregon, Tom Allen in Maine, and Tom Udall in New Mexico. Let the telecom PACs fund the DSCC and candidates like Kay Hagen, they get good value for their money.
This is interesting. According to SUSA, Fischer is now behind 43-18 against Bruce Lunsford. Two weeks ago, he was behind 47-9. That's a stunning 13 point gain, and both Fischer and Lunsford have been on the air. The poll was taken before Fischer's negative spots against Lunsford hit the air. The Fischer campaign also unveiled a website, The Lunsford Collection, detailing Lunsford's long history of bad behavior. Lunsford is a corrupt conservative, and definitely the worst Democratic candidate for Senate in the country.
Fischer has an uphill climb, but with the right set of circumstances he can sneak up on this one. The primary is on May 20, so he has to gain roughly a point a day on Lunsford to win. That's doable but extremely tough. Still, Kentucky Democrats hate Bruce Lunsford, Fischer has surprised people with his haul of cash in the last quarter, and Lunsford dropped 26 points in the last 21 days in his gubernatorial race last year.
To those of you who have been following the oregon senate race closely it is not be news that chuck schumer and the dscc have descended upon the beaver state to put their thumb on the scale weighing in on behalf of steve novick's primary opponent (jeff merkely).
early in the campaign it was common knowledge that schumer had brought their man in oregon back to recruit him to run again gordon smith, though it wasn't clear what financial, strategic or infrastructural resources they had offered him (or how it would affect that campaign he would run). as it became clear that the dscc was involved in the primary the merkley campaign took two tactics to deflect the issue:
the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee paid $73,000 to an Arkansas company for an advance team to help stage his kickoff as well as $20,000 for research.
Now, from Roll Call via Loaded Orygun the whole saga is laid out in more explicit terms, the Hill see's it as a power stuggle between schumer himself, and the grassroots campaign being run by steve novick.
There is a rumor going around that Harry Reid will step down as majority leader either at the end of this year to focus on his re-election campaign, or in three years after he retires from the Senate. While I should emphasize that I have nothing to back up this rumor, it does raise the interesting possibility of a new campaign for majority leader in either one year or three years that is worth discussing.
The obvious candidates for majority leader would be Durbin, Schumer, Dodd, and the loser of the 2008 presidential nominating contest. Durbin is the second highest ranking Senate Dem, obviously giving him a path to become majority leader. Schumer has been head of the DSCC for a while, and after 2008 at least 15 members of the Senate will have been newly elected under his watch. Dodd narrowly lost a campaign for majority leader following the 1994 elections, with Daschle only edging him out by one vote. There has also been talk online of finding a way to make Dodd the majority leader. Finally, the loser of the nomination campaign will be the junior Senator from either Durbin's or Schumer's state, giving him or her a possibility of putting together a coalition of presidential endorsers plus Durbin and Schumer supporters. The latter seems to be an especially strong possibility if Obama becomes President, potentially giving Clinton the inside track to become majority leader. After all, would President Obama and Majority Leader Durbin be an overdose of Chicago politics (or President Clinton and Majority Leader Schumer be an overdose of New York City politics) dominating Washington D.C.?
This could just be idle speculation, but if Harry Reid steps down, who would you want to see replace him as Senate majority leader? Take the poll in the extended entry.
I heard from a very reliable source that Chuck Schumer and Mark Penn are really pressuring superdelegates to come out for Hillary. They are also pushing hard to reinstate Michigan and Florida. I imagine the arguments they are using are that Obama can't win, and that Hillary is prepared to take on the right because she has credibility on national security.
Let me start by noting that I no longer work for Senator Chris Dodd, and I write here at the behest of absolutely no one other than myself -- Tim
Organizing online against retroactive immunity taught me a lot about the way the Senate works, it's norms and customs, and how fallout happens.
For example, I learned that the weapon of choice for those who wished to enable the passage of retroactive immunity was not to make a forceful case on its behalf ... but abusing and using parliamentary procedure. We saw staffers participate in disinformation campaigns about parliamentary procedure to keep bloggers confused and silent about the process (bloggers, the only ones really covering the debate). And we saw that retroactive immunity was only stalled because Senator Dodd objected to and then used all the parliamentary tactics at his disposal to prolong the debate to a point it would have threatened the Christmas recess.
And today, we learn that Senate justice for rocking the boat is meted out by anonymous aides on the pages of "Roll Call" (subscription)
Democrats said the FISA fight - which could come in the first week or two of the new session - may be an early test of whether Dodd's presidential campaign has caused any significant strains in his relationships with colleagues.
One senior Democratic aide said that while some Democrats could have been irked in the heat of the moment, most understand it is the nature of presidential campaigning for candidates to tackle hot-button issues and to rely heavily on veteran staff for day-to-day work in the Senate.
"I think it's too early to say" whether there are any hard feelings, the Democratic aide said. "But I think you could term it as a key few months for him" in terms of his reintegration into the Caucus. "It will be interesting to watch when he returns," the aide said.
Get back in line, Chris Dodd, and you can be my distinguished colleague from Connecticut again.
Earlier today, the Senate failed to reach cloture on the renewable energy bill by only one vote. As was the case with all Democratic legislation, 60 votes were required (Republican legislation only need 50 votes, of course). The final tally was 59-40, with John McCain not voting and Mary Landrieu as the only Democrat or Independent who voted against the bill.
Let's review the situation here. Mary Landrieu is, by far, the most endangered Democratic incumbent this cycle. A Survey USA poll released today showed her narrowly ahead 46%-42%, but well under the important 50% marker for incumbents. Landrieu will need a ton of outside help from her Democratic Senate colleagues in order to get re-elected. At the same time, Democrats only need her vote in order to pass an important renewable energy bill.
Now, maybe I am missing something, but isn't there an obvious point of leverage in this situation? The leadership should turn the screws on Landrieu's potential outside support in order to get her to pass this bill. That is what leadership should do. Landrieu needs something from other Senate Dems, and Senate Dems need something from Landrieu. Instead, Landrieu will get the help she needs from Senate Dems, and Senate Dems will roll over for Landrieu:
Senate Democrats stripped Thursday two key provisions from a sweeping energy bill aimed at reducing US reliance on foreign oil in order to gain support from the Republican minority.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats agreed to remove a provision that would have cut billions of dollars worth of tax breaks to oil companies.
The majority also decided to take out another provision requiring that 15 percent of America's electricity come from renewable, environmentally-friendly sources by 2020, Reid said.
Let me be blunt: having 15% of our electricity come from renewables by 2020 is way, way, way, way more important than electing Mary friggin' Landrieu to another six year term in the Senate. It isn't even close. Second, Democrats don't even need Mary Landrieu in order to maintain their majority, since they have at least ten strong Senate targets in 2008, while Republicans only have Landrieu. Third, Landrieu is probably going to lose anyway, given both her current weak polling situation and the destruction that has devastated Louisiana's African-American community. I'd put her re-election chances at less than one in three.
The fact is, Democrats don't really need Landrieu come election time, but she needs other Democrats. As such, we could have applied major pressure relevant to her election. However, instead of making her feel any real pain for defeating this legislation, Harry Reid decides to cave on renewable energy standards and tax breaks for oil companies. That isn't leadership--that is pathetic. This was as obvious a moment where real pressure could have been applied to pass important legislation, and the Senate Democratic "leadership" utterly failed to do anything.
We need new leadership in Congress. Or, perhaps to phrase this better, we need leadership Congress. Right now, I don't see how what Harry Reid is doing qualifies.
Update Commneter Ron notes that Landieu could have voted against the bill, and still allowed it to pass:
She could still have voted against the bill, but she voted against her party to filibuster the bill. That is unbelievable.
