Check her favorability among Democrats -- I'm betting it is low.

BTW, with respect to the MOE, only one of those match-ups is outside the 4 points. Yet TPM says nothing about it and even goes so far to claim that they are "leading". That is fundamentally wrong, TPM. At least make an effort to learn what you are posting about.

Good. She's as useless as tits on a bull. If 60 Senators means nothing to the Dem Caucus, then I'd gladly go down to 54 Senators if I could pick which 6 to jettison.

As of 9/9 Nate Silver estimated that Arkansas was relatively closely split on public option -- 44% for and 45.25% against. This was before Obama gave his speech which raised the favorables for the public option. I'm betting she's going to find a lot of her former supporters and voters sitting on their hands.

When Schumer talks about "not having 60", what he means is:

"Blanche won't vote for cloture on any bill that has a Public Option."

I don't think she's the only one. There are other Senators who are bought off as well. But they need the coverage of Blanche getting out there infront of them. It's easier for 3-4 others to join her as long as one jumps in the deep end.

That's part of what we saw today with Conrad and Baucus on the Schumer bill. I think deep down that Conrad and Baucus don't want a PO. But if forced to, Baucus would vote for cloture on a bill with a PO. And if he were the 50th voted needed to pass a bill with a strong PO out of Conference, Baucus wouldn't ignore the White House and the balance of the Dems to vote against it.

Conrad is a slightly different bird since he's committed so much of his Meaning In The Process on his stupid Co-Op solution. To vote for a bill with a strong PO would be to basically admit he was full of shit for the past five months. Granted, he knows he's full of shit but it's not something he wants to admit.

But in the end, neither of these guys want a PO. They have been bought and paid for, and are looking for ways to keep it from being put in. They're looking for others to do their work for them, such as the ConservaDems twisting Reid and forcing the Progressives to cave to a weaker bill. And the Blue Dogs along with Stenny doing the same in the House while Rahm works the phones to beat up the Progressives.

Part of their support is giving Blanche coverage here. Rather than make her go it alone on an amendment that would *pass* FiCom and get included in a bill that would *pass* FiCom, they allowed her to "force" them to do what they actually wanted to.

"Don't have 60 votes."

Rather than trying to twist those arms starting with making them publically disclose that they would vote against the PO every step of the way through cloture starting right now, they give her cover to help he do the dirty work towards leadership.

Biggest question will be whether there ends up being a "deal" to get her to vote for cloture on *any* bill:

She'll only vote for cloture is Items A, B & C *don't* come back out of conference.

It's not that the House has to agree with that. But on the other side, all of the Senate members of the Conference Committee will have known that Blanche (and likely others) cut the deal and will beholden to keeping it.

I think folks shouldn't get their hopes up for the PO getting backdoored through Conference with the House versions coming out of the process. If there isn't a PO in the Senate bill, and if it does pass cloture, people probably should realize that various deals were made to get those cloture votes. It's going to be hard to steamroll the Senate members of conference to pitch those deals simply because that's not how the Dems in Senate opperate. Certainly not how Harry and Baucus, who will be part of the Conference committee, opperate.

I tend to think that if the PO doesn't get added by the Senate in some form, it just isn't going to happen. I hope I'm wrong on that. But simply pulling everyone in for a cloture vote *isn't* something Harry and Leadership do very well when they want to. I think we all know in this case that there are a lot of members of Leadership and the White House who *don't* want a PO and are very receptive to deals that see it kicked to the curb, regardless of the good polling numbers.

John

Not incidentally but temporarily forgotten, all who listened to the debate today (yes, I'm one) know that the arguments against the public option range from illogical to contradictory to ridiculous. Don't forget: even after 3 months of Town Hall Tirades and solemn declarations that the public option is dead (I just heard that phlegmatic fool David Gergen say it yet again), it isn't. And the more the PO is seriously discussed, the better it fares. Why? Because it makes perfect sense.

If I lived in her district I would work to primary her. We would be better off losing the seat than having an saboteur within. She has done good work for corporations such as Wallmart so will be well rewarded for her services.

I meant Republican

She needs to retire.