The White House is saying this afternoon that unanimity among Senate Democrats is not the standard that should be applied to his jobs bill. This is in advance of a vote tonight in the Senate on the bill. Republicans plan to filibuster the bill. So it is a certainty that the bill will not pass because it cannot get 60 votes. The question is whether it could even get 50 votes, which of course comes down to whether the President and Harry Reid can get the support of every or almost every Senate Dem.
The news peg is that the White House is going to go along with breaking the bill into chunks and voting on them individually rather than doing it in one big bill. And that’s supposed to be the White Flag getting run up the flag pole.
Now, is this a White House putting up the white flag? Will it be seen that way? Absolutely. But I think this is an example of ceding the ground of the debate far too soon. As I write I’m hearing Luke Russert tell me that this means the White House will lose the argument that it’s Republicans blocking the bills passage. So the whole argument the president is pushing comes to a halt.
But this strikes me as silly. Again, I’m not disagreeing that this will be how it’s played, only that it has to be that way.
In case people haven’t noticed, Congress is currently very unpopular. Very unpopular. The details of whip counts of votes in the Senate is almost all the focus of people who already have firm opinions. The idea is that the President is running against the Congress, against a do-nothing Congress, which it undoubtedly is. They shouldn’t be getting tripped up on needing every single Democrat to be voting with them. That’s a fool’s errand. If you’re going to run against Congress, my God, run against Congress!
