Did Democrats decide that things were already going so great there was no need to push a tax cut vote?
Greg Sargent says that Schumer and Menendez, the former and current heads of the DSCC, both really wanted to hold a vote. That would be telling, if true, since those are the two guys most plugged into the political dynamics of the equation. Greg also says that Baucus, usually the bete noire of party liberals was for it too. And that’s at least not inconsistent with our reporting on the story.
But here’s the kicker. Here’s what an aide told Greg …
So why did it fail? According to a very plugged in Senate aide, Senators debating the issue were very aware that the polling was on their side. Yet, paradoxically, this ended up tipping the balance against holding the vote. Senate Dems felt they were alreadly winning on the issue, and in the end they thought a vote risked upsetting a dynamic that was already playing in their favor.
Now, I’ll say this. This is comical on a notional level, if nothing else. Dems: Mid-term lead up going so well. Why rock the boat?!?!
We’ve had two reporters on this story pretty much exclusively over the last couple weeks. And the truth is I don’t think we or anybody else yet really knows quite what’s happening inside either caucus. At a high degree of generality I think we know. But getting down to the details, there’s so much spin, ass-covering, internal confusion and changing positions from one moment to the next that it’s hard to get a really clear read on just what’s going on.
