Okay, so let’s say you’re a Democrat in the House of Representatives, and you do not want to vote yes on the Senate version of the Health Care Bill. You know there is no hope of fooling people into thinking that you didn’t really vote for it by claiming you only voted for a rule that automatically passed it. You don’t even like the bill because its substance is a 100% Senate product without the slightest bit of compromise toward the body you serve in, the House. (-No fat, juicy earmarks or sweetheart deals for your district!) Finally, based on the polling data as well as the outspoken feedback from numerous constituents; you know it will be next to impossible to get reelected if you vote for this costly monstrosity. So, no, you really don’t want to vote for it.
But here’s your problem: if you say you’re voting no, Pelosi promises to go out of her way to make your life a living hell in the House. She’ll jerk all your committee assignments & fancy titles; choke off DNC funds that would flow to your reelection campaign; have you shunned from the best D.C. social events and outings; etc; etc. Obama calls you up and says, “Hey, if you vote for the bill you might not get reelected, BUT you’ll be a hero and we’ll see to it you get a posh job – maybe even an ambassadorship. If you vote against the bill, you MIGHT get reelected, but your life as a congressional representative will suck. You’ll be persona non grata magna cum laude. You won’t want to be here anymore because no one will want you here anymore. But now consider: If you vote for the bill and you manage to get reelected, not only will you be a hero, but life in the House will be quite good for you.”
So what do you do? If you vote for the bill, you likely lose your seat in the House. If you vote against the bill, your seat may not be worth sitting in. Here is what you do. You find as many fellow wavering Democrats as you can and you secretly promise each other to remain utterly uncommitted prior to a floor vote. You will not say you will vote for the bill, and you will not say you will vote against it. Instead you say you are paying close attention to the feedback of your constituency. If that Coalition of the Non-Committal puts Pelosi fifteen or more votes shy of the 216 she needs, there is no way she can call the bill to the floor for a vote. She can’t risk losing by that large a margin. If she were to miss by just two or three votes, that defeat would be devastating enough; but she’d have to risk it because so much is at stake. But if she we were to miss by ten votes, twenty? That would be total humiliation. And not just for her, but for Obama too. Being exposed as that abjectly incompetent is unbearable and unacceptable.
So, by refusing to announce in advance that you’re inclined to vote against the bill, Pelosi can’t single you out as one of the votes that will kill the bill – since you might well still vote for it and she doesn’t want to alienate your vote. And yet, if there are enough wavering Democrats like you, she can’t call the bill to the floor for a vote because she might end up looking like a fool if she can’t even muster 200 votes. If the bill is never voted on, then you never failed to vote for it nor claimed that you would. Thereby you avoid being vindictively singled out by maniacal speaker Pelosi. And yet you have also spared yourself from voting for a bill that would incur the wrath of the voters in your district.
Hopefully wavering Democrats who are desperate to keep their seats will be smart enough to promise each other to simply refuse to declare which way they will vote until the very moment of actually casting their votes. If that is the case, the bill is already doomed. If not, then Pelosi might be able to pressure and outright threaten her way to the magic 216 she needs.
Wish I would have chosen letters for my drinking word!
You have the picture. But I would tell Pelosi that if DNC funds are cutoff and all the rest, that my constituents are willing to allow me to talk with the Republican Party about switching.
If 0bambi does this, you take the recordings and your FBI FD-302 form immediately and simultaneously to the Fox News, the Washington Times, and the FBI while putting Holder on public notice that it appears to you the president has committed one or more high crimes. Let a special counsel sort out which charges to bring.
Maybe it'll just be Patrick Fitzgerald, as an adjunct to his Blago-Chicago-corruption filings.
HF