At first glance it appears that the majority of the Republican House caucus defied their leadership and voted against the sellout. One would think, therefore, that there would be a full scale revolt against the entire GOP leadership to punish them for their betrayal. But that’s not how Washington works. This was all a big charade. The House leaders figured out how many votes they needed to pass the bill and determined which members were best able to survive a “yes” vote. If they had needed another 30 sellout votes, they would have got another 30 sellout votes. A lot of those in the GOP majority were simply permitted to vote No to give them political cover for next year’s election cycle. There are probably only 50 true conservatives in the entire House and fewer than 10 in the entire Senate. The political balance situation is much worse than the average American imagines.