The Vanquished Winners

Over at LGM, Scott Lemieux argues that the Dems should tell the GOP to screw off and turn the vote for the stimulus bill into a short-term budget reconciliation bill that can't be filibustered.

In theory, this is of course correct; a filibuster should be both politically damaging and futile for the Republicans, and the Democrats shouldn't just assume that they need 60 votes but should compel an actual filibuster before just passing the best stimulus they can under reconciliation rules if necessary. The Democrats should realize that the GOP has very little actual leverage here. Whether they do, of course, is another question, and I'm much less optimistic about the answer than Kevin. (Admittedly, it's hard to tell the difference between concessions being offered to appease Republicans and concessions being offered to appease Blue Dogs.)

And therein lies the problem: it's the Blue Dogs in the Senate preventing the reconciliation path altogether. The bill doesn't even have 50 votes at this point.

The GOP may not have much leverage, but the Democrats have even less spinal integrity. Meanwhile, the odds of passage for the stimulus plan seem to fall daily, and for his bipartisan efforts, Obama will get 100% of the blame and none of the credit on the .001% chance the economy improves before November 2010.