Will They? Won’t They?

Will the Democrats get to 216 votes to pass the Obamanation Bill? There are supposedly 18 “undecided” Dems out there—with a wild card, the Republican Cao of LA being seriously wooed by Obama—which may mean that the actual number in play is only 17.

Our side needs only seven. A magnificent seven. Isn’t it interesting how one of the recurring numbers in scripture is the key number in this vote? But I digress.

I think most of you know my long-standing prediction (since last August, here): this is a done deal. What is happening is a kabuki dance to see which of those 18 becomes vote number 217. I often tell students that in the run-up to the Civil War, the proposal for “compensated emancipation” was a non-starter, because if you start buying slaves to free them, any slaveowner with a lick of sense starts raising his prices. With each addition slave freed, the price of the next one doubles, or worse. You NEVER get to zero. But in the case of these 18 fence-sitters, there is indeed profit at the margin. The trick becomes when to cash in, and hope you are, as the Bible says, “the last in line.”

Well, then is it any surprise that uber-leftie Dennis Kucinich became a “yes” today, and just as this goes to print, Mark Schauer announced his “yes.” So Pelosi needs one less, and the GOP is still stuck at 209.

You cannot trust a Democrat. I feel like Randy Quaid in “Independence Day,” “I been sayin’ it and sayin’ it—ain’t I been sayin’ it?” In the end, we will come up one short. Pelosi will allow a couple of the last hangers-on to vote no to save their jobs, but only after she has the vote.