How One Senator’s Vote Can Affect Another’s
Will Joe Lieberman be the first Democratic domino to fall on health-care reform? Will Olympia Snowe be the first Republican one?
By Eleanor Clift | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Oct 16, 2009
Getting health-care reform to this point has been like a game of chess, a test of strategic skill, with each move prompting a countermove as the surviving elements of the bills progress through the process. It's a major accomplishment for President Obama and the Democrats to have gotten this far, but now the game changes. From here on, passing legislation is more like a game of dominoes than chess, with lawmakers who fall into line taking their neighbors down with them. (Click here to follow Eleanor Clift)
Talking with one of the pro-reform lobbyists on health care, I learned to my surprise that Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman is a crucial swing vote. If he turns against it, he may take others with him. He's not on either of the Senate committees that wrote the bills being considered, and he's just one vote. But if you can't get Lieberman, an independent Democrat, to vote for health-care reform, you're unlikely to get conservative, red-state Democrats like Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska to back it, since they'll be reluctant to be seen as to the left of Joe Lieberman.
(Original here.)
By Eleanor Clift | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Oct 16, 2009
Getting health-care reform to this point has been like a game of chess, a test of strategic skill, with each move prompting a countermove as the surviving elements of the bills progress through the process. It's a major accomplishment for President Obama and the Democrats to have gotten this far, but now the game changes. From here on, passing legislation is more like a game of dominoes than chess, with lawmakers who fall into line taking their neighbors down with them. (Click here to follow Eleanor Clift)
Talking with one of the pro-reform lobbyists on health care, I learned to my surprise that Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman is a crucial swing vote. If he turns against it, he may take others with him. He's not on either of the Senate committees that wrote the bills being considered, and he's just one vote. But if you can't get Lieberman, an independent Democrat, to vote for health-care reform, you're unlikely to get conservative, red-state Democrats like Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska to back it, since they'll be reluctant to be seen as to the left of Joe Lieberman.
(Original here.)
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