For the third straight day, the Republicans have refused to allow the Senate to debate the Wall Street reforms bill. In fact, things are getting worse. On Monday and Tuesday, we got 57 votes for cloture (58, really, because Reid changed his vote for procedural reasons). Today we got only 56 votes (because Byrd didn’t vote). There will be another cloture vote tomorrow. I have no idea where we go from there. Despite CNN’s report that Sen. Voinovich of Ohio will eventually vote to take up the reforms, he chose not to do so today. And despite TPM’s reporting that Minority Leader McConnell was resigned to defeat, his caucus stayed with him again.
One reason we’re seeing this rancid display is that Republicans continue to be more threatened by challenges from their right than they are in the general election. John McCain, for example, has seen his public approval numbers plummet 27 points since last September, but he still leads his likely Democratic opponent 49%-33%. As I mentioned yesterday, Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah is probably going to lose his job on May 8th when the state GOP has their convention and votes on who to put on the primary ballot. We’ve seen Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida get absolutely routed by a right-wing challenger in his bid to become a U.S. Senator. Under these circumstances there just isn’t much appetite among even modestly moderate Republicans to cooperate with Democrats on anything. It’s comforting to at least see members like John McCain lose support from Independents and Democrats as he lurches to the right, but the overall picture is beyond depressing.
Maybe the Results Party will prevail in November over the Party of Hell No, but I’m not seeing any signs of it, yet.
I guess I can console myself that whatever happens we won’t have Sam Brownback to kick around anymore.
