The Importance of Unity
By Matthew Yglesias
In addition to shoring up support among the young, the most important question facing Social Security advocates is whether or not we can maintain a united front in the congress. Technically speaking, Bush can push this through without a single Democratic vote even in the Senate by abusing the budget reconciliation process.
There's always some chance, however, that the GOP Senate caucus won't stand for that (just as Senator Byrd blocked a similar effort by the Clinton administration to do health care as a reconciliation item) so it's worth being prepared. More to the point, however, a lot of Republican Senators and House members aren't too excited about this plan. It's not so much a question of conservatives versus moderates, as it is a question of people who happen to have a bug in their pants about Social Security versus those who are nervous about the political risks here and who have other agendas they'd like to advance.
The only really feasible way to put a stop to this is to make sure that the nervous nellies stay very nervous. Key to that is making sure that unlike with, say, the Medicare bill, they can't drape their vote in even the merest veneer of bipartisanship.
I'm told that the most likely culprit for a stab-in-the-back is Joe Lieberman. It seems to me that the Democratic leadership, as well as progressive constituency groups, need to make it clear to Senator Lieberman that Connecticut is not the sort of state where the national party needs to take a certain degree of apostasy for granted. There must be many Connecticut Democrats who'd be eager to take a seat in the US Senate, and at least one who'd be willing to chance a primary campaign over it. If not Richard Blumenthal then one of the state's House members or some other downballot statewide officeholder. |
