another mind blowingly stupid idea from one of the bright lights of right blogistan. putting aside the fact that erik's readers are inviting a visit from the department of homeland security, they don't seem to get that snowe's vote yesterday actually helps their cause if they are opposed to a more progressive form of health care reform. as paul waldman points out, if snowe had voted "no", no one would have paid any attention to her anymore. health care reform would proceed to the full senate without any input from the GOP. her "yes" vote guarantees that when the finance committee bill gets combined with the others, every more progressive change will be floated by senator snowe first to scope out how far she is willing to go before her "yes' turns to a "no."
put another way, if snowe had voted "no" in the finance committee, the democratic leadership would give up on trying to woo any republicans and there would almost certainly be a public option in the final bill. with snowe's "yes" vote, suddenly her opposition to the public option makes it less likely that there will be a public option at the end of the day. or maybe snowe will go for it if there's some kind of trigger or maybe they'll make a public option that is intentionally hobbled to give private insurance the competitive advantage. whatever it is that snowe wants, she now has a chance to get. only because of her "yes" vote does she have the opportunity to water down the legislation.
erikson's commitment to ideological purity is bad legislative strategy. not that i'm complaining about that.
