Boehner BBA Bill Passes 218-188
Dear Senate RINOs: Please Get Ready To Be Primaried If You Vote Against the BBA

Update: It passed.

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One of those things they like to claim they're in favor of, until it comes up for tangible proof of that -- like voting it into being -- at which point they'll start hemming and hawing.

What is the problem with the BBA? Or a BBA, since whatever BBA will become part of the final deal hasn't been written yet, meaning you can craft it as you like?

And yet many of the RINOs, who must be primaried, are considering voting for Reid's bill-- which would kill the BBA.

Here's the list of those the Democrats think they could get. Note that the Democrats may be engaging in wishful thinking on some of these; but Scott Brown has already said (through a spokesman) he's thinking about voting for Reid's no-strings bill.

Right now, Democrats are looking to about 11 gettable GOP votes: Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bob Corker (R-TN), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Scott Brown (R-MA), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Tom Coburn (R-OK). The last three were the Republican members of the Gang of Six deficit reduction group.

Without getting into the Purity/RINO thing, at some point we do in fact expect Republicans to vote Republican, such as on noncontroversial, broadly popular agenda items like cutting spending.

And we also expect them to vote with us tactically. This is all in furtherance of further negotiations, and to cut the House out of it for no reason is simply announcing you're an Independent, and should be treated as such.

Lose the seats in these cases; if you're not with us on the easy, no-brainer, lay-up votes, you're simply not with us, and it's better to go for longshot 1-in-10,000 chances of a decent replacement than to limp along with you.

The sad thing here is that Boehner's plan is squishy and weak. And even that might be too strong a brew for Scott Brown and his soon-to-be-ex-Republican Senators from the Northeast.

Jeff Flake, by the way, has a cute way to get the BBA on the agenda even if Reid blocks it.

posted by Ace at 06:07 PM

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