Cloture Sale: Obama, Partisanship Stand Ready for Victories

ABC News' Rick Klein reports: Ladies and gentlemen, we have cloture. Closure can wait. For President Obama and Democrats in Congress, this is a win with some potential losses — of party unity, and of standing with the public, all over a policy they may not wind up wanting to sell. For Republicans, this is a loss with some potential wins — of party unity, and (so they hope) of standing with the public, all over a policy that they may want to continue to see sold. (And the scoreboard may change a bit over the next 11 months.) All of which combines to mean health care will drag out in all its ugliness through Christmas and beyond. It makes the moment perilous for both parties — since it’s easy to overplay what you think is a winning hand. Democrats needed every last one of those 60 Senate votes for the first cloture vote shortly after 1 am ET Monday — and had to cater to 60 egos (we’re still counting the giveaways) to keep the bill on track. It’s a fitting bookend on a frustrating year for the White House: Your final tally of Senate Republicans supporting the president’s biggest legislative priority: zero. Diagnosis: politics. “A year that began with hopes of new post-partisanship has indeed produced change: Things have gotten worse,” Carl Hulse and David M. Herszenhorn report in The New York Times. “Enmity and acrimony are coursing through a debate with tremendous consequences for both sides as well as for the legislative agenda in the months ahead.” “It was to be an era of cooperation,” Roll Call’s Keith Koffler writes. “Coming on the heels of a bitterly contested election, the idea seemed a stretch to some. It was.” “Even as the bills Democrats pursue have become more moderate, the roll calls have become more partisan,” Ezra Klein writes at his WashingtonPost.com blog. “Tonight's vote was a moment of enormous progress for social justice, but evidence of enormous regression in our political system.” Why drag it out now that it’s clear Democrats have the votes? “Because they haven’t got the American public,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” Monday. “They have 60 percent of the United States Senate; 60 percent of the American people are against this.” Of the maneuvering that makes the bill deficit neutral, according to the Congressional Budget Office: “It’s one of the great Bernie Madoff gimmicks that I’ve ever seen,” McCain said. “That’s nutty stuff.” Democrats control the place, of course, and the result is undeniable progress on sweeping domestic legislation. A few more votes and a few big fights with the House still loom, but health care reform is now closer than ever to actually happening in the foreseeable future. But some procedures make you sicker before you can get better. As for the latest vote… “This was the big one,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported on “GMA” Monday. “Huge differences between the two versions, but the Senate will hold tight.” The political fight ahead: “The reality, I think, will trump poll numbers in the dead of winter as this debate is going on,” David Axelrod told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.” The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman — making his subject that much more popular with the Netroots: “In an interview Friday, [Rahm] Emanuel expressed little concern for the president's standing with the Democratic base. Mr. Emanuel said the liberal wing of the party is already coming back to the fold. … ‘Every time they've gotten close to the deal, they've passed up the opportunity and chosen to walk away from a particular chance where they've lost the forest for the trees,’ Mr. Emanuel said.” The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder: “The bruising year-long battle has left the Democratic party divided, has expended virtually all of the president's political capital, and ithe legislation's fidelity to the goals sketched by candidate Obama are questionable.” Dan Balz, in The Washington Post: “Democrats have a dual problem. They must find the votes to pass a bill to avoid the charge that, even with their big majorities, they are incapable of governing. They also must convince voters that the policy changes they want to enact include far more pluses than minuses.”  Early framing: “A challenging closing round of negotiations, culminating in a series of compromises with moderates, threatened to overshadow the significance of what Democrats believed they were close to achieving: the most significant health-care legislation since Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965,” Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery write in The Washington Post. Selling it: “Democrats and the White House were moving to shift the focus from their dozens of concessions — such as jettisoning a government alternative to private health insurance — toward the momentous changes they said it would bring: providing insurance access to 31 million more Americans, cracking down on insurance practices, and beginning to curb healthcare cost inflation,” the Los Angeles Times’ Janet Hook and Noam M. Levey report. The Boston Globe’s Lisa Wangsness: “The voting schedule may hold political risks for Democrats. They are already bracing for a difficult midterm campaign in 2010, and with polls showing declining public support for the health care bill, Republicans will surely remind them that they pushed it through with votes at all hours and even on Christmas Eve night.” Why everyone’s working Christmas Eve: “Obama and congressional Democrats ran on competence, and they need to get this done. It’s getting embarrassing after eight months of maneuvering,” Politico’s Mike Allen writes. Playing out this string — Sen. Lamar Alexander, on ABC’s “Top Line” Friday: “The reason we are [unified] is we see the Democrats determined to pursue a political kamikaze mission toward a historic mistake… We’re ready to stay until Valentine’s Day if we need to.”  A key calculation — one that’s ruining more holiday travel plans than the weekend snowstorm: “Republicans vowed on Sunday to continue their fight while acknowledging that their chances of stopping Senate passage had faded,” Carl Hulse reports in The New York Times. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on “Fox News Sunday”: “We’ll fight the good fight, we’ll fight until the last vote.”  Counting up the goodies — and this may take longer to unpack than the rest of Senate debate: One provision in the Senate bill extends Medicare to “people exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont.,” Robert Pear reports in The New York Times. “For a decade, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, has been trying to get the government to help them. He is in a position to deliver now because he is chairman of the Finance Committee and a principal author of the health care bill.” Per the AP: “A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night. The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut.” ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf: “Democratic staffers say there are 11 states with medical schools that could qualify for the funding (we’re still waiting for the list). The Secretary of HHS would decide who gets a piece of the $100,000,000 pie.” Ben Nelson’s vote: “Nebraska will receive $100 million in assistance for its Medicaid program under provisions in the Senate's healthcare bill negotiated by Sen. Ben Nelson (D),” The Hill’s Michael O’Brien writes. “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) informed lawmakers on Sunday night that the section of the manager's amendment to the Senate's health bill would cost $1.2 billion over 10 years.” Gov. Dave Heineman, R-Neb.: “Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal. … Senator Nelson negotiated this special deal, rather than a fair deal for both Nebraska and America. The responsibility for this special deal lies solely on the shoulders of Senator Ben Nelson.” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.: “This process is corruption.” Ugly way to win: “What is supposed to be a victory for people who previously couldn't afford proper health care in the greatest country on this Earth has become something cheap and coarse, those with power using it like some kind of credit card,” Mike Lupica writes in the New York Daily News.
Channeling the outrage and the disappointment — on the left: “Instead of trying to derail the process, which is exactly what conservative opponents want to do, those on the left dissatisfied with the Senate bill should focus their efforts over the next few weeks on getting as many fixes into it as they can,” E.J. Dionne Jr. writes in his column. “And then they can do something else: Start organizing for the next health-care fight. Enactment of a single bill will not mark the end of the struggle. It will open a series of new opportunities.” Reading from that playbook — sort of: “Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle,” Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said in a statement Sunday. Not convinced: FireDogLake.com is out with its Top 10 reasons to kill the Senate bill. Except that: “Liberal Democrats complain the health care plan that headed for Senate passage isn't good enough, but congressional leaders predict the final version that comes out of Congress is not likely to change much,” Ken Bazinet writes in the New York Daily News. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.: “It is very clear that the bill — the final bill — to pass in the United States Senate is going to have to be very close to the bill that has been negotiated here.” Did Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., make things harder for himself? “The shape of the legislation — and specifically, the fact that there were never going to be 60 votes in the Senate for a government-run public option — has been clear for months,” writes Time’s Karen Tumulty. “So why did Reid insist upon taking the public option to the Senate floor as part of the initial bill he introduced, making the fight even messier and at times seriously jeopardizing Dems' chances of passing such a landmark bill?”
Call to arms, toward a new Senate: “Nobody should meddle lightly with long-established parliamentary procedure,” Paul Krugman writes. “But our current situation is unprecedented: America is caught between severe problems that must be addressed and a minority party determined to block action on every front. Doing nothing is not an option — not unless you want the nation to sit motionless, with an effectively paralyzed government, waiting for financial, environmental and fiscal crises to strike.” Diane Sawyer makes her debut as “World News” anchor Monday — with an exclusive interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the interview, Ahmadinejad refused to look at a copy of a document purporting to show that Iran has been trying to develop a crucial component of a nuclear weapon. “No, I don't want to see this kind of document. These are some fabricated papers issued by the American government,” he said. On “This Week,” Axelrod called that allegation “nonsense,” and warned that “there will be consequences” for Iran if they continue to buck the international community on their nuclear program. McCain, on “GMA”: “We’ve been through nearly a year delay, while the Iranians have steadily progressed…. Time is running out. We’ve wasted just about a year.” Out of Copenhagen — new hope? “The first offer by China and India to limit greenhouse gases in a global agreement may help U.S. President Barack Obama win over members of the Senate who don’t want to impose similar restrictions on American companies,” Bloomberg’s Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Kim Chipman report. Or, not: “The global effort to combat climate change is stuck in essentially the same place after a massive United Nations summit that it was before the confab: with major emitters deadlocked over how much each of them should have to do to curb the rising output of greenhouse gases,” Jeffrey Ball writes in The Wall Street Journal. “Far from resolving the issue, the Copenhagen conference set up months more of international haggling over what to do about climate change.” Gitmo update: “The number of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay sank to under 200 this weekend with the transfer of a dozen former prisoners in the last day to Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somaliland,” ABC’s Jake Tapper reports. “One hundred ninety eight detainees remain at Guantanamo. Since President Obama took office, 42 detainees have been transferred to other countries, and one detainee — Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani — was transferred to New York City for trial.” Federal offices in the Washington area are closed Monday, as is the Supreme Court. But it will be warm inside the Capitol, as the health care debate continues. On the presidential schedule: “Mr. Obama … will meet with the SAVE Award winner in the Oval Office,” per ABC’s Sunlen Miller. “Launched in September of this year, Mr. Obama challenged every federal employee to submit their ideas for cost-savings in the federal government, soliciting over 38,000 entries from all over the country. The winner this year, Nancy Fichtner of Colorado came up with the idea that patients leaving VA hospitals should be able to take unused medication home with them instead of throwing it away when discharged. Fichtner’s idea will be included in the president’s 2011 budget.” 
The Kicker: “What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight. That’s what they ought to pray.” — Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the doctor putting on his deacon hat. “It would be disingenuous to say it never crossed my mind, and I'd be just as happy doing an animal program.” — Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., to The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, on whether he’ll run for president again.
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