Eighth Measures
The Democrats have been pretty lucky in the past two elections. Sure, they were gonna do well anyway, but there were a whole bunch of close calls and they won almost every one of them. Because of this, they now have 60 votes in the Senate, and are allegedly filibuster-proof. (Whether there should even be a filibuster is another question.)
Now there's a claim that Republicans can peel away a few centrist Democrats to block the big legislation coming up. Who are these people? The Big Six are Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor.
Of course, there are a few centrists among the Republicans too, and they'll have to stay stalwart as well. But even if they do, I doubt the Dems will have much trouble. Sure, there are some huge votes coming up that the voters will remember, but Presidents can be pretty ruthless, and even Joe Lieberman, who's been kicked out of his party before, will generally wilt.
The evidence in the article that people like Nelson, Lieberman and Landrieu can make a difference is that they "cut more than $100 billion from Obama’s economic stimulus package." In other words, a gigantic new government program was passed, and they chipped away at the edges a bit.
The upcoming bills dwarf the stimulus, and even if they somehow cut a trillion dollars of cost from them, that won't be enough.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:26 AM
2 Comments:
"pretty lucky" only in the sense that anyone who wins anything is "pretty lucky" "currently preferred" by a fickle electorate is more accurate.
You're missing my point. Perhaps intentionally. I accept the public was leaning toward them. Then I noted there were a lot of very close races that could have gone either way. You'd expect them to be about 50/50, but in the Senate, they're like 10 for 11. It's like saying someone is the favorite to win the world series, but it would require a lot of luck to win it 4-0.
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