according to politico.com<\/a>.<\/p>\nImagine that you are Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson or Florida Senator Bill Nelson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Old Ben cut the \u201cCornhuster Kickback\u201d for his \u201cyes\u201d vote, only to pretty much guarantee the loss of his political future with Nebraska voters, who don\u2019t like the bill and don\u2019t like things done that way.\u00a0 Will he switch to \u201cno\u201d in an effort to at least salvage his dignity?<\/p>\n
Old Bill cut \u201cGator-aid,\u201d which would protect some Florida seniors from having their Medicare Advantage ripped away.\u00a0 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\u2019s votes and fund raising.\u00a0 What\u2019s he going to do when those voters find that he can\u2019t keep the deal?<\/p>\n
Strangely, the mother of all the deals, Mary Landrieu\u2019s upwards-of-$300 million \u201cLousiana Purchase\u201d still seems safe, under the rubric that \u201cit would apply to any state in which all the counties have been declared a disaster zone.\u201d\u00a0 Even the genius of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is unlikely to pry any loose change out of that bayou babe.<\/p>\n
So what does Landrieu have that no one else does?<\/p>\n
Someone should ask the President.\u00a0 Someone should also ask him what new deals he\u2019s going to cut to get through the next round of votes, because he doesn\u2019t have the votes without them, and, as they say on the Hill, \u201cthe candy store is open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Somewhere up there, Lyndon is laughing at the amateurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One thing about Lyndon Johnson \u2013 as Senate Majority Leader and as President.\u00a0 If he made a deal, he was more than likely to honor it. Not this new crowd.\u00a0 President Obama wasn\u2019t in the Senate long enough to make any deals, and Harry Reid has made some of the worst, most odorous in recorded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[531,938,12,525,14],"class_list":["post-4162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-ben-nelson","tag-bill-nelson","tag-health-care","tag-mary-landrieu","tag-president-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4164,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions\/4164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}