Legal Commentary

Tactical Extremism From Ben Nelson

By Big Tent Democrat

Never send Matt Yglesias to negotiate for you, though he is a pretty good apologist. Watch him quaver at Ben Nelson's tactical extremism:

I know a lot of the readers of this blog think that Barack Obama could cause any bill to pass the Senate that he wants if only he were sufficiently spiney, and that any effort to point out the existence of objective impediments to passing legislation is just “shilling” for the White House, but it’s still the case that objective impediments exist. To pass a bill through a non-reconciliation process, you not only need the support of guys like Max Baucus and Kent Conrad, you also need the support of even-less-progressive Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln. And then there’s Ben Nelson, the most conservative Democrat of all. [. . .] Maybe you can get a public option put in place via reconciliation, in which case you don’t need Nelson, but absent reconciliation you do need Nelson and he’s intransigent.

In terms of bargaining, the response to Ben Nelson FROM Obama should be obvious - "Look Ben, I'd love to do it your way, but the House ain't going to budge. So unless you can work with a public option, I just do not think we can do business. We'll have to do it by reconciliation. Sorry." It doesn't take a genius to know this.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 04, 2009 (boomark / email).