They MUST hold in the Senate or it is lost. It goes back to house, it passes with dems support which will mitigate the tea party votes. When that happens we can thank the COW, the two sob sisters in Maine, the guy with the pickup truck in Massachusettes, McBraindead, McTunnelvision, and a few other lackies in the senate GOP.
Frankly, we don’t have the firepower to stop this IMO. I wish we had more Rubio style gopers in the Senate but we have what we have...useless as teats on a bull. What really irks me is the dems vote as a bloc in both houses and we have goof balls who cave in yet the GOP gets called the party that won’t negotiate...this is all nothing but mental masterbation.
The whole thing was set up by the leadership on both sides to play out this way. Our senate squishes are actually relatively minor, though useful, figures in the larger charade.
Oh, and don’t think that we wouldn’t have had a couple dozen other GOP Senators to switch for the cause as required: we really only have a half dozen solid conservatives there and they just sent the the few required out from those could best take the bullet for this vote.
worst case, they have given us a few weeks or months to get ready for shtf, when the debt issue will simply “fix” itself by implosion, regardless of Congressional fumbling and executive fiat