The folks over at Red State certainly are feeling rather triumphant about the death of health care reform. They are taunting the Democrats, asking them to attempt reconciliation:
Senator DeMint has made it clear — and Senator Hatch too — the gloves come off this time in the Senate. It will be a movable feast (to use Dodd’s phrase from the NYT story above) of non-germane amendments and every tough health care vote that is conceivable.
Walking the plank for the Dems will become daily, Senate-seat killing affair.
This time, the tough and creative and merciless will be running the repeated flank-attack-by-amendment and Senate floor ambushes. The most effective weapons will not be declared off-limits. Now, weapons are hot and the GOP Delta forces are praying the Dems walk again through their pre-set mortar firing solutions and, under fire, fall back to the only place where there is any cover, only to find M-18 claymores waiting. (As in, yeah, we thought that’s where you’d run to.)
The Dems will be treated to months of pain and suffering, as they try to burrow down deep for safety, they will slowly lose their cool and will find themselves in an even worse political posture by GOP arc-light strikes.
It will remind the public that the Dems are not listening and really don’t care what the public thinks, while they cheer the Republicans on. The stunning NPR finding of a plus five generic ballot advantage for Republicans — plus ten for those most likely to vote — will spike upwards.
Sounds like a lot of brave talk aimed at scaring the Democrats into doing exactly what Red State really wants, which is a final victory when the Democrats declare the effort at health care reform over.
