Giving The Game Away

Josh Marshall theorizes as goes Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, goes the Senate.

There's a lot of storm and confusion right now. And no one's going to put their cards on the table until after Obama speaks. But the biggest tell I've seen over the last few days was Ben Nelson's announcement yesterday that he'll support a 'triggered' public option.

The question for the White House right now isn't what's ideal from a political or policy standpoint. It's finding some way to thread this needle. Because at this point, most of the pathways on the right and the left of this question seem firmly blocked. And this is the one, maybe the only one, that might not be.

Obama has to sell "robust public option" to the Democrats and "robust public option" to at least a couple of the Republicans. If Ben Nelson is willing to go along on the trigger however, that's the out Obama is looking for. However as I said last week, the trigger is there to make sure the public option never gets activated. The progressives in Congress aren't going to buy that and the Republicans aren't going to ever allow a situation where the trigger happens.

So how does he get out of this one? I don't see the path going through the trigger either.