Bill's Big Diamond Blog

Republican Senators Paying Big Bucks for Coleman's Seat to Remain Empty

Wonder why it’s so hard to pass effective legislation to combat the economic mess we’re in?  Maybe the 60-vote Senate cloture rule is something more Americans would like to examine.  Consider this— a growing number of Republican Senators are donating $2,000 to $10,000 apiece to the campaign coffers of one unseated colleague in an effort to keep his opponent from taking the 59^th Democratic seat in the Senate.  Why?

 Well, think about how different the debate on a stimulus package would have been if only one Republican Senate vote had been needed—instead of three.  If Senator Al Franken of Minnesota and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts had been voting, the Republican minority would have to be looking at each other and wondering, “Which one of you guys is going to roll on us and vote for an actual stimulus package with jobs?”

 It would then only take one.

Meanwhile, the Republican Senators themselves are ponying up to keep Norm Coleman in court from now till they run out of election appeals in Minnesota, while the unemployment lines grow longer every day.  

(See John Nichols' Nation article for an update.)

Friday the 13th Points...

A few quick thoughts:

 1)    I guess Judd Gregg looks pretty lame now, having accepted the Commerce Department Cabinet position after playing Hamlet —and then realizing that he would forever be shunned by the Right Wingers who now call themselves the Republican Party if he went through with it.  The not voting on the Stimulus bill really didn’t help him either.  Not a guy New Hampshire voters will now run to for a courageous stand in the future…like during next year's re-election battle.

 
2)    I hope Obama finds another Republican Senator from a state with a Democratic Governor to nominate.  It’s clear now that the Republicans intend to employ a scorched Earth policy towards the country.  If they can’t have power here, they’ll just hope the nation is decimated by their ability to stymie real change and run against failure in four years.  It seems a lock that the only way to bypass this is to find a 60th vote in the Senate, assuming that the Minnesota Senate trial ends with Franken still the winner there.
 

 3)  Melissa Leo has my vote for Best Actress.  See Frozen River if you have a chance.  It’s one great little movie for any film lover.  She’s wonderful in it, as usual, and the fallout of our economy and our immigration policies are evident in the landscape of the film for those filmgoers who are politically minded.