Goalposts Inching Our Way

by digby

I don't think I've ever seen Villagers assume that liberals would hang tough before, but it seems to be becoming something of an article of faith. On Hardball today, Matthews asked Todd and Fineman whether or not the President is going to get a bipartisan bill. matthews mentioned Mike Enzi as being someone who they could potentially work with. Fineman said it was impossible:

The problem is that they would then pass a bill in the Senate that will be way too conservative to be reconciled with whatever the House would go for. Whatever they would get in that fashion would just not sell in the House. And even if they got to the conference committee, it would be impossible.

Todd then said that he believed the president was no longer committed to a 60 vote strategy because he believed it was crazy that he had to get more than 55 or 5 to pass legislation. I don't know if that's true, but all three villagers nodded their heads sagely as if that was self-evident.

I don't know if that's really the state of play, or if any of this has meaning, but it's significant that these three didn't reflexively indicate that the Blue Dogs would win the day. Baby steps, folks, baby steps.

Update: On the other hand, Amato caught Chuckie spouting some real nonsense earlier on Andrea Mitchell. Two baby steps forward, one baby step back.


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