Absolutely. If First does, in fact, harbor fantasies of a political future past November 2006, this is a life or death situation. Fail to go to the wall now and he is a fast receding footnote in the obscurities of history.
I'm also enjoying putting McInsane in a box. If he votes wtith the Dems on this does he really expect to win ANY Republican primaries? Maybe he'll pull a Jumping Jim but if he were stupid enough to do that his celebrity status as a "maverick" would run for about a week and then he'd be about as useful to the Democrats as Jeffords is now.