Jophiel wrote:
Could be. But I think the House vote was artifically narrow. The House leadership has a pretty good idea of the counts and lets folks off the hook by letting them vote "no" so long as the bill will pass. If the bill had another 30 Democratic "yes" votes, it wouldn't have changed the discourse any.
I suspect you are correct. However, that's a great indicator of just how unpopular they know that this is. The Dems know that this bill will hurt them next year in a number of key races.
The assumption that they have to "let them off the hook" should be the first clue as to just how bad an idea this is. If it was truly a good bill they'd be able to stand behind it proudly. Clearly, it isn't...
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However, I assume the bill will languish in the Senate for a while. I get the impression that the Democrats will spend their capital on health care before attempting the climate bill.
Hah. That's another disaster waiting to happen IMO. I don't think that the House as a whole really wants to touch this with a 10 foot pole. But if Obama can't push it through during this session, it's not going to have a chance and he's going to have serious problems in 2012. It's going to be another one of those "push this through while trying to minimize the damage it does to us in the process".
I just don't think the Dems can thread that needle. My fear is that they'll try anyway, figuring that even if it costs them control of Congress the damage will have been done and in another 10 years or so they can play on the problems of the day, knowing that the people will have forgotten this, regain power and continue to the next step.
We'll be the ones who lose though...