Republicans Counting Chickens...

You have Paul Ryan, a startlingly corrupt and abysmally mediocre congressman from southeast Wisconsin taking time out of his campaign to dismantle Social Security and Medicare to turn down the presidency (while assuring his lunatic fringe followers that he'll accept the vice presidential slot on the Republican Party ticket). Then you have Indiana clown and off-the-chart extremist Mike Pence reassuring Democrats that when the fascist-oriented GOP takes over Congress again-- despite the public's distrust of and disdain for them-- they'll treat the vanquished Democrats fairly. Example: although about double the Americans polled say they prefer Obama's approach to job creation to the GOP approach, Pence, while backing out of his threat to run for the Senate seat being abandoned by Evan Bayh, was crowing how teabaggers would sweep the GOP into power. (On Meet The Press this morning DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen's defensiveness came through clearly: "I've always said... this was going to be a very tough political cycle... This idea that they're going to be popping the champagne corks prematurely and measuring the drapes is clearly-- they're high on their own hype.")

On the other hand, Miss McConnell (R-KY), a far savvier politician than either Pence or Ryan will probably ever be, is trying to stick a bit-- even if just a little bit-- more to nuts and bolts reality on the ground, something Republicans normally voice contempt for, at least publicly. On Friday, McConnell's office was attempting to persuade Beltway media hacks that Senate Democrats don't have the votes to pass healthcare reform through reconciliation. He claimed there are 18 Democrats in opposition-- or, presumably. 17 + Lieberman. And the GOP obstructionist caucus only needs 11 to derail the effort. Democrats claimed McConnell was pulling the numbers out of his ass and that the Senate caucus hasn't been whipped on reconciliation yet-- and won't be until after Obama's last-ditch effort to get at least a few Republicans to sign on to a bipartisan effort to pass healthcare reform (Thursday).

Now that McConnell's efforts have been exposed, he's trying to walk them back, especially since some of the 18 Democrats he claimed oppose reconciliation, have already publicly embraced it, namely Harry Reid (D-NV), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Max Baucus (D-MT), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Arlen Specter (R/D-PA) and even whacky reactionary Mark Pryor (AR).

Even arch-ConservaDem Evan Bayh (IN) was on NPR the same day as McConnell's propaganda team was in action, saying of reconciliation "may be that that has to be ultimately resorted to because something to improve healthcare is better than nothing.” McCaskill (MO), as usual, is expected to follow Bayh and some of the Senate's most hardened conservatives, all of whom McConnell was counting on-- from Ben Nelson (NE), Kent Conrad (ND), Mark Begich (AK) and Mary Landrieu. McConnell can probably count of lobbyist-in-the-making Blanche Lincoln, who is hiding under her desk and refusing to comment.

Yesterday, McConnell, embarrassed, started hedging and now says it isn't clear if he has enough Democrats willing to cross the aisle and vote with the GOP to kill healthcare reform. He ran to a Republican Party television program, Fox News Sunday and whined that "There'll be a lot of Democrats who will vote against it. Whether there will be 11 Democrats who will vote against it is not clear."

Yesterday Think Progress-- and even Fox's Chris Wallace-- were agog that McConnell claimed-- with a straight face-- that the GOP hasn't been obstructionist. Watch how silly he looked on the GOP show: