This Ain’t Lyndon Johnson Country No More, Toto
One thing about Lyndon Johnson – as Senate Majority Leader and as President. If he made a deal, he was more than likely to honor it.
Not this new crowd. President Obama wasn’t in the Senate long enough to make any deals, and Harry Reid has made some of the worst, most odorous in recorded history.
Now, it seems, in his desperation to pass ObamaCare (which only passed the Senate based on the deals Reid made the first time through), President Obama wants to get rid of some of the smelliest, according to politico.com.
Imagine that you are Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson or Florida Senator Bill Nelson.
Old Ben cut the “Cornhuster Kickback” for his “yes” vote, only to pretty much guarantee the loss of his political future with Nebraska voters, who don’t like the bill and don’t like things done that way. Will he switch to “no” in an effort to at least salvage his dignity?
Old Bill cut “Gator-aid,” which would protect some Florida seniors from having their Medicare Advantage ripped away. That one never got the attention it should have, because it was wrapped in some complicated, deceptive language meant to hide the fact that it was only going to really apply in three heavily Democratic Florida counties that are the mainstay of Old Bill’s votes and fund raising. What’s he going to do when those voters find that he can’t keep the deal?
Strangely, the mother of all the deals, Mary Landrieu’s upwards-of-$300 million “Lousiana Purchase” still seems safe, under the rubric that “it would apply to any state in which all the counties have been declared a disaster zone.” Even the genius of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is unlikely to pry any loose change out of that bayou babe.
So what does Landrieu have that no one else does?
Someone should ask the President. Someone should also ask him what new deals he’s going to cut to get through the next round of votes, because he doesn’t have the votes without them, and, as they say on the Hill, “the candy store is open.”
Somewhere up there, Lyndon is laughing at the amateurs.
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