Over on "The Hill" there is an article in which Tom "sweet barbeque" Harkin says that he's got you back:
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said that the Senate "comfortably" has a majority of votes to pass the public plan, and that he believes Democrats can muster 60 votes to break a filibuster.
he goes on to say "I believe we'll have the 60 votes, now that we have the new senator from Massachusetts, to at least get it on the Senate floor,"
More with Mad Max's speech before he voted against P.O........
Meanwhile, Sen. Baucus explains to the lowly Liberals that "Rome was not built in a day" and that you should calm down:
"I want the strongest bill I can possibly get; I want a bill that can become law," he said. "But my first job is to get this bill across the finish line. There's a lot in this bill that will reform insurance... there's a lot in this bill that will control costs... those things have to be my priority, and thus I will have to vote no today against this amendment."
Boom, take that Kos!!!!! Here allow me to let Max speak for himself:
And of course CNN rubs it in your FACE!!!!
I am glad we have competent Dems like Harkin to help get the Public Option pass. and am I the only one who thinks that Sen. Baucus was talking out of both sides of his mouth? What a douche! As I said before, we have to be able to get every Democrat to vote for cloture. Even if you dont vote for the Bill, vote for cloture for goodness sake. There should not be a Dem member of the Senate who doesn't vote for cloture. It's the same reason I think Obama's nominees shouldn't be able to get filibustered. There should be a website dedicated to putting Dems who allow filibusters to be put on blast.
As former DNC Chair Howard Dean summarized: "If you are a member of the Democratic Party you have an obligation... to vote with the party on procedural issue. I would expect that regardless of what Senators think they about the public option, they should be there for cloture."
These are some old quotes, but still......
On the Hill, Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-VT) has been one of the chief proponents of the commit-to-cloture strategy. And increasingly, senior aides say, he is getting the backing of the party's leadership.
"I think there is growing support for the understanding that if, for whatever reason, some of the conservative members of the caucus choose not to support a public option or vote for final passage that is fine," said Sanders. "We can live with that. What we do need is a united caucus to say to the republicans and say, 'sorry you are not going to sidetrack health care reform and we are going to go forward.'"
"You will have 50 votes for a strong public option" if we get there, Sanders added. "I do believe that."
So the farce of Baucus' bill must hurry and end so that we can get the real, true bill. Now, if we could just do something about Sen Nelson and his new, imaginary 65 vote threshold...........