Tom Tomorrow wonders, with 72% of Americans for health care reform, how will the Dems blow it? But might the magic "60" inspire Senator Reid?

(You know the drill: Click to enlarge. And for a lookback

at Tom T's take on "the last time around," peek here.)

by Ken

"How will Democrats blow it this time," Tom? Well, I'm hearing from progressive colleagues that there's already a prevailing sense among netroots progressives that the Democrats have already tanked the health-care fight, and I've certainly voiced my pessimism (along with my grave reservations about the "pollluters' delight" ACES climate bill).

Just now, however, let's take the finally imminent seating of Al Franken to the Senate seat he won in November as an occasion for hope. Howie is going to have more -- a lot more -- to say in his next post about this notion of a "filibuster-proof" Dem majority. Just for now, however, I want to take the tack of seeing Al Franken's arrival in the Senate as a possible source of inspiration for Harry Reid and the rest of the Senate majority leadership.

Hey, I'm not naive here. I don't know of anyone who was more dubious than I was back on Election Night about the possibility of the Dems achieving the mystical "filibuster-proof" majority, regardless of how many Senate seats they wound up controlling. If nothing else, that elusive "60" was going to include His Holiness, the Shame of Connecticut, Joe Lieberman. After all, Holy Joe votes "with us" except on the war -- or any other damned thing he takes it in his head not to. But even if the Dems could push their total to 61, the caucus has an entire mini-caucus of mini-Liebermans.

Think "Ben Nelson," for starters -- hey, I didn't say this was going to be painless. Or Evan Bayh, the reputed favorite of both 2008 Democratic presidential finalists for the VP nomination, who instead returned to the Senate and promptly set about organizing an anti-Democratic Senate Democratic voting bloc.

(Question: Might the passing over of Evan Bayh have been a miscalculation on the president-elect's part, a glitch in his "team of rivals" approach to coopting his potential party-leadership rivals by bringing them into his administration? Is it possible that he thought so little of the poor senator that he didn't feel any need to coopt the wretch? Following this train of thought, might the senator's miserable attempt to prove that he is too somebody be in some measure a form of "I don't get no respect"-type payback?)

Nevertheless, those 58 Democratic plus two Independent Senate votes count for something, even allowing for the uncertain availability of Senators Byrd and Kennedy because of their precarious health situations. Our friend Lane Hudson has been putting this in the form of a challenge to the majority leadership: Now is the time, he suggests, to urge Senator Reid to rise to the opportunities presented by that within-the-grasp vote threshhold.

When I chided Lane for his optimism, he asked if it isn't at least our responsibility to ask. And he makes the eminently practical point that at the very least the leadership should be held to mustering its voting clout on cloture votes, requiring caucus members to toe the line on them. They would still be free to vote their conscience in the final vote on a bill, but they shouldn't be allowed to aid the opposition in preventing a final vote from happening.

Once again, I come back to what seems to me the ultimate case in preposterousness: the currently imperiled nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the Justice Dept's Office of Legal Counsel, because there are apparently "only" 57 yea votes. What kind of pass have we reached when it's possible for a presidential appointment to fail because it garners "only" 57 votes?

By Lane's thinking, Senate Democrats would be required at least not to oppose their president on the all-important cloture vote. "They need to stop using cloture as an excuse," he says. "Period. Procedural votes do not equal policy."

I'm persuaded, even inspired. It's time for the leadership to take control, to put some "whip" back in the "whipping" of its members -- not to mention encourage Republican senators who aren't totally beyond the reach of reason that they have a responsibility, to the country and even their own continuing careers, to separate themselves occasionally from the utter loonies.

Go for it, Harry!


PLEASE HELP US HELP SENATOR REID 
"WHIP" DINO DEM BLANCHE LINCOLN

While we're indulging this heady fantasy of the Democratic leadership in Congress doing some old-fashioned "whipping" of its members, we don't want you to forget the campaign the Blue America coalition has launched, the Campaign for Health Care Choice, to do some whipping of our own, starting with the TV spot that's already been made -- written by Digby, don't forget! -- to encourage Arkansas voters to let their wayward Sen. Blanche Lincoln they'd like her to vote their interests.

You can read all about it on our ActBlue page. Here's a sample:

Perhaps it's not surprising that Lincoln is showing so much compassion for the poor insurance companies. She's taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from them over the years. In fact, she's already received $14,500 from insurance companies for her 2010 campaign, the second highest of any senator up for re-election next year. And the only reform they support is reform that will get the taxpayers to pay the overpriced premiums for the 47 million uninsured without having to change their ways. The fact is that insurance companies are not in any danger of going out of business because of the public plan choice unless they continue the kind of practices that have brought us to this crisis.

A quality public plan is the only way we can ensure that health care reform will reduce costs and increase coverage. It's imperative that Senator Blanche Lincoln get off the fence and support it.

Blue America needs your help to run some ads in Arkansas to persuade her that selling out to her insurance company supporters just won't do. We need for people to tell her that she must stand with the American people who are desperate for real health care choices that will reduce costs and increase coverage.

Please donate what you can to our campaign. And if health care reform is something that does interest you, by all means take a look at this piece in the Arkansas News about how Lincoln is selling out working families for her Insurance Industry allies. “One of our biggest concerns," she admitted, "is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do."

As Howie always points out, even the smallest contributions help; Blue America has made a specialty of making those small individual contributions add up to collective healthy chunks o' cash for our carefully selected recipients.

Here again is the link to our ActBlue page. Thanks for whatever you can contribute.

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