“White House Now Has Key Leverage To Bring To Bear On Wavering Democrats”
Oct 13, 2009 8 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
That’s the number of Republican votes — in the form of Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) — that President Obama’s health care bill received in the Senate Finance Committee today.
Winning a single GOP vote is rarely a legislative victory but the White House should be heartened by Snowe’s “yes” vote for two major reasons.
First, the White House — and President Obama himself — lavished attention on Snowe over the past weeks in an all-out effort to win her support for the bill in the Finance Committee. In fact, Snowe’s “when history calls, history calls” explanation of her vote sounded strikingly similar to the sort of rhetoric coming out of the Obama White House regarding the health care bill.
For a White House that has taken a series of hits of late for their lack of effectiveness in the sort of political horse-trading that can make or break an administration, this is rightly seen both as a victory and a finger-in-the-eye to those who were questioning Obama’s political radar after the Olympics debacle late last month.
Second, with Snowe on board, the White House — and the liberal left — now have a key piece of leverage to bring to bear on wavering moderate Democrats. You can almost hear the argument being made to the likes of Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.); “Snowe is for it, how can you not be?”
