The Note: Ultimate Lines — Senate Super-Majority May Not Bring Super Results

By RICK KLEIN It took exactly half of 2009 to close the books on 2008 — and you wonder why things don’t move quickly around here? (It’s going to take a bit longer into this year for the GOP to end its funk: It wouldn’t be July without a fresh round of Sarah Palin-inspired finger-pointing — or a new Palin photo spread.)  (And did the Mark Sanford affair cross an, umm, line? What good love stories have truly happy endings?)  Al Franken’s long-delayed victory is a marking point on several levels: It ends the historic 2008 campaign (miss it yet?); it puts a professional comedian in the Senate; it caps a 15-seat, two-cycle swing for Democrats under Sen. Harry Reid’s leadership that leaves them with numbers they haven’t enjoyed in a generation. Then there’s 60 — a threshold that, like in baseball, isn’t what it used to be, and may not be all it looks like on paper. Votes that need 60 are the norm these days in the Senate, on procedural and substantive issues. We look forward to the measure that will attract the simultaneous support of Franken, Sen. Ben Nelson, Sen. Arlen Specter, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Sen. Joe Lieberman — with a healthy Sen. Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy in the Senate chamber. And we look forward to Reid, D-Nev., explaining to yet another interest group why things can’t move as quickly as they’d like. “Sixty is a magic number, but it isn’t,” said Franken, D-Minn. (Kos says it all: “Psst, Harry? You’ve got 60 Dems. . . . No more excuses.”)  What 60 most definitely doesn’t change: The need for bipartisanship, and for public support to grow if the Obama agenda is to pass. President Obama hits the road (but barely) with a town-hall meeting in Annandale, Va., at 1:15 pm ET on Wednesday — tying together social networking sites and Organizing for America efforts around the issue of the day. When he gets back to Washington, he’ll find Democratic glee, sure, but lots of no-excuses-now trepidation: “It’s unlikely the 58-year-old Harvard-educated comedian and now senator-elect will make a dramatic difference this year as his party and the White House fight to overhaul health care, limit carbon emissions and pass other major bills,” McClatchy’s David Lightman writes. “Where Franken could make a difference in the Senate is on procedural votes, the votes on parliamentary maneuvers that keep legislation moving.”  “The win carries symbolic weight for the Democrats, undeniably branding them the party of power in the White House, House and now the Senate, where Democrats will hold a 60-vote supermajority — counting two independents who caucus with them,” P.J. Huffstutter and James Oliphant write for the Los Angeles Times. “But the practical effect of the 60-vote milestone may be less profound.”  “At 60, every member has a veto,” Eric Ueland, Bill Frist’s former chief of staff, tells the AP’s David Espo.  Bob Franken, on his distant cousin’s win, in Politics Daily: “The concept of a filibuster-proof Senate is as laughable as one of his ‘Saturday Night Live’ characters; each member’s loyalty to party is dwarfed by the loyalty to his or her individual ego.”  They’ll take the vote: “At the very least, the Democrats’ theoretical 60-vote majority could help de-gum some of the Senate’s cogs so legislation might begin to flow again — even at a trickle,” Time’s Jay Newton-Small writes.  Democrats will have “at least the symbolic ability to overcome filibusters,” Monica Davey and Carl Hulse write in The New York Times.  “With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (Not the end for Norm Coleman: “A source close to Coleman said that while the former senator, whose term expired in January, wished the decision had come out the other way, he was pleased it was unanimous,” Rachel E. Stassen-Berger and Dave Orrick write in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “The former mayor of St. Paul may have yet another decision to make. When asked if he was thinking about running for governor in 2010, he said he wasn’t ready to talk about that.”)  Back in the legislative realm: The president pushes health care Wednesday at a forum at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale. From the White House: “In addition to the live audience, questions will come from online communities such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Senior advisor to President Obama Valerie Jarrett will moderate the town hall.” Obama is “tapping online social media in a new end run around the traditional news filter,” Julie Mason writes in the Washington Examiner. “Although the format opens up the opportunity for questioning Obama to a potentially limitless online audience, the White House controls which questions are asked.”  (No voting on questions this time — with apologies to the legalized pot folks.) A piece of momentum: “Wal-Mart is the latest in a line of traditionally Republican-leaning businesses to embrace key portions of President Barack Obama’s bid to overhaul health care, a trend that could complicate opponents’ efforts to build a united front when Congress ramps up its work on the issue this summer,” per the AP’s Chuck Babington. “Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, on Tuesday endorsed the idea of requiring large companies to offer health insurance to their workers.”  It’s “a major break with most other large companies,” per The Wall Street Journal’s Janet Adamy and Ann Zimmerman. “The National Retail Federation, the industry’s main lobby, said it was ‘flabbergasted’ by Wal-Mart’s move.”  The Kennedy plan takes shape: “Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s committee will propose creating a government-backed alternative to private insurance designed to pay for itself after getting federal start-up money,” Bloomberg’s Nicole Gaouette reports. “A summary of the provision written by the Massachusetts Democrat’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee describes a public insurance plan that could be quickly available around the U.S. with payment rates set by the Health and Human Services Department.”  Careful on the give-and-take: A smart piece from The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn, on why compromise may make health care a harder sell. “Obama must be wary of conceding too much. Even in strictly political terms, a good bill that passes with a narrow margin may preferable to a weak bill that carries huge majorities,” Cohn writes.  New CNN poll out Wednesday: Obama’s health plan has 51-45 support, the president has a 49-38 trust edge on health care over Republicans in Congress. (For Obama, these numbers are downright mortal.)  Obama’s trust edge 53-33 in the new Quinnipiac poll; a new tax on health care benefits, meanwhile, is opposed 63-30. In a reminder of how messy things can be — unpacking the energy bill: “The bill was freighted with hundreds of pages of special-interest favors, even as environmentalists lamented that its greenhouse-gas reduction targets had been whittled down,” John M. Broder reports in The New York Times. “Some of the prizes were relatively small, like the $50 million hurricane research center for a freshman lawmaker from Florida. Others were huge and threatened to undermine the environmental goals of the bill, like a series of compromises reached with rural and farm-state members that would funnel billions of dollars in payments to agriculture and forestry interests.”  Also not pretty: “Sen. Daniel K. Inouye’s staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth,” Paul Kiel and Binyamin Applebaum report, in The Washington post. “The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks.” Ready for that second stimulus yet? “”The fact of the matter is that the unemployment rate is much worse than the administration contemplated or that most people expected,” Paul Krugman tells ABC’s Jennifer Parker. “So the economy is much weaker than we thought it’d be, meaning, in fact, it could use more stimulus.”  Before we get there: Vice President Joe Biden hits the road Wednesday as part of a rural tour, with his first stop in Erie, Pa., to highlight broadband access as part of the original stimulus bill. Then there’s Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., whose tearful interview with the Associated Press has even long-time loyalists predicting that it’s only a matter of time now before he’s forced out. We thought last week’s news conference was rambling and messy: “In a lengthy and emotional interview with The Associated Press in his Statehouse office, the governor described five meetings with Maria Belen Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up,” per the AP’s Tamara Lush and Evan Berland.  It wasn’t just Maria (and who brings a spiritual guide to meet his mistress?): “There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn’t have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line,” Sanford said.  This was a critical period for Sanford — to win back credibility, to show he can govern effectively, and to put the salacious stuff behind him. But lines have indeed been crossed: “Six of 27 members of the conservative Senate Republican Caucus Tuesday night issued a letter calling on Gov. Mark Sanford to resign,” Roddie Burris, Clif LeBlanc, and Gina Smith write in The State.  “Two additional senators considered among Sanford’s staunchest allies, also said they want him to resign though they did not sign the letter. Two other senior senators who spoke to the State said Tuesday’s revelations moved them closer to asking Sanford to step down.” Plus: “S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster today asked the state Law Enforcement Division to review Gov. Mark Sanford’s travel records after the governor acknowledged meeting his mistress more times than he had previously said,” Tony Bartelme and Yvonne Wenger write in the Charleston Post and Courier.  The Greenville News wants it to come to an end: “Gov. Mark Sanford should resign immediately and allow South Carolina to begin picking up the pieces. The two-term governor has destroyed any shred of credibility with his lies unnecessarily added on top of other lies. His ability to govern this state has been compromised so severely that he cannot fulfill the duties required of this state’s governor until a successor takes the oath of office in January 2011.”  Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer: “He’s determined to remain on as governor and determined to continue the work of this administration.”  “The new disclosures put Mr. Sanford’s ability to remain governor back in doubt just when such concerns seemed to have been abating,” The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg writes.  The winner in all of this? “Jenny Sanford presents a new and improved version of the betrayed political spouse — neither enabler nor victim,” Ruth Marcus writes in her Washington Post column. “She is as smart as Elizabeth or Hillary — trade the law degree for an investment banking vice presidency (Lazard Freres) — and may be tougher, too, at least when it comes to husbands.”  With apologies to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.: “Rep. Carolyn Maloney has decided to take on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the 2010 Democratic primary, refusing to bow to party leaders who want her to stay out,” the New York Daily News’ Michael Saul reports. 
As for Gov. Sarah Palin — the fallout of the Todd Purdum piece leaves Bill Kristol publicly warring with Steve Schmidt — with Randy Scheunemann taking Kristol’s side. Politico’s Jonathan Martin plays it all out, with details of the McCain campaign searching e-mails of its staffers in frantic search of leakers: “[Kristol's] allegation that I was defaming Palin by alleging post-partum depression at the campaign headquarters is categorically untrue. In fact, I think it rises to the level of a slander because it’s about the worst thing you can say about somebody who does what I do for a living,” Schmidt tells Martin. 
Said Scheunemann: “Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth.”
The Kicker: “Sweat is my sanity.” — Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, to Runners World, in an interview where she says she can beat President Obama in a (foot) race.  “This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story. . . . A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.” — Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., perhaps not realizing that the day’s not over yet. 
Today on “Top Line,” ABCNews.com’s daily political Webcast: Jonathan Morgenstein, senior national security policy fellow at Third Way and an Iraq war veteran; and Newsweek’s Holly Bailey. Noon ET. Follow The Note on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thenote For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day:

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