A Senate aide cautions:
First, yes, the victory yesterday – a product of tireless efforts by a handful of conservative Senators and staff – is a nice pause in this debacle. But I am afraid that is all it may be… the White House is still 100% committed to getting this bill passed. Harry Reid is looking to actually accomplish SOMETHING for crying out loud… and there is no tiring by … the entire “deal-making” team. The White House has a full plan of attack. They are ready to start plucking votes one-by-one. Conservatives should note precisely which Senators were with us on defeating cloture and compare that to how Senators may change if the bill comes back… in other words, we should make sure we know which Senators are bought-off if the White House does what we believe they will. The sad reality is that people are putting far too much stock in the votes against cloture for some of the deal-makers. Some felt they had to vote that way in order to be “fair” to the caucus. However, those guys were ready to vote the other way if they had felt they could get away with it. Seriously, don’t make too much of their votes… there were very specific reasons why they did it – and it had to do with the tough stances of a few conservative senators…