It’s become apparent today that counting votes on ObamaCare has devolved into an exercise of herding cats. The Hill is heroically trying to compile a whip count:
House Democratic leaders don’t have the votes to pass healthcare reform. At least not yet.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has expressed confidence that when push comes to shove, healthcare reform will pass Congress. But there will be plenty of pushing in the days ahead.
Pelosi is clearly down in the vote count. Thirty-four House Democrats are either firm no votes or leaning no, according to The Hill’s whip list. Dozens more are undecided.
You can find the whip count here.
Today President Obama tried pulling out all of the stops by parading former Republican Congressman Ray LaHood (now President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation) to flack for ObamaCare but, as JammieWearingFool wisely notes, LaHood would be on his way out of Congress if he supported ObamaCare as an incumbent Republican congressman. Irony, though, is not one of those things these Democrats readily grasp.
Why is it that all the attempts by this administration at the mere pretense of bipartisanship fall flat on their face? Could it be that there is no bipartisanship at work here but instead a preponderance of slight of hand combined with heaps of chutzpah to move ObamaCare through the House by means of dishonest devices (such as the Slaughter “deeming” debacle which BTW have a longer history of use in the Duma than the House of Representatives)?
Correction: I mistakenly referenced the St. Louis rally of a few days ago when I should have linked the Minnesota rally today. Note to self: Don’t post during college basketball tournament overtime.