Remember December 3. It’s a date that will pop up in many campaign ads next year when they roll those votes (Sen. Bill # 9999) with the date (in this case December 3) to show voters that the candidate’s opponent really did cast a vote on a given day. The vote yesterday was to cut $500B from Medicare. To be more exact, as Politico reports:
The Senate voted to keep nearly $500 billion in Medicare spending cuts in the bill, rejecting an amendment from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to send the legislation back to the Finance Committee with orders to strip it out. The measure would have eliminated the major funding source for the bill. All 40 Republicans joined Ben Nelson and Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) to support the McCain amendment, which failed 42-58.
That’s right: 58 Democrats voted to slash half a trillion from Medicare. And those who are up for re-election next year will hear about it over and over again.
What’s more, two Democrats bolted. What’s that mean? A Senate source replied with his own question: “They couldn’t get Ben Nelson and Jim Webb on this, so will they be there at the end to vote for $500 billion in Medicare cuts?” Hmm. We don’t know. And before we get there, as Politico notes, ”the public option, abortion and financing the plan remained serious obstacles to negotiating a final bill.”
For now, the greatest deliberative body in the world continues to deliberate. And the ad makers will be making notes.
In the back of her mind, Hillary Clinton wants John McCain to win. She has to bet that he will only be a one term president. Hillary believes that the Zeitgeist has appointed her to be our leader. She rightfully perceives Obama as trying to capture the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Hillary will not allow this to occur.
There’s no “back of her mind” about it. If Obama wins the Democrat party belongs to him. If McCain wins it still belongs to the Clintons.
Hillary’s pandering to the working-class voting base of the party right now, and they’ll remember her for it. She’ll get blacks back by telling them that Obama lost because of racism, and the academic/intellectual class will fall in line because just they want to win. She’s probably still unelectable (if the Dems had any brains they’d go with some younger version of Phil Bredesen–Hey morons! Southern governors is the way to go!), but she won’t be denied her shot.
Woe to the Obama-backing union leaders and various party leaders who don’t have a strong non-Clinton base–the knives will be out come November 5.