At this point, the situation looks rather bad for health care reform. It's still worth doing if we don't get anything for the public option, but appearances do matter in politics. So do personalities.
How to handle this?
Option one: reconciliation. It's a way around the filibuster but is dependent on the reading of the Senate parliamentarian. Better than nothing.
Option two: Take out the filibuster. Nate Silver discusses the a way to do that, don't do it via health care reform, go for it when we've got public backing, say on financial reform. I don't think
Option three: Make a deal with Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe. This probably means no public option or a pathetic trigger. So what does the left get? Sen. Lieberman's committee positions. Ezra Klein lays it out, he presently seems to be making decisions based solely on pique. We can rely on him for nothing, not even to engage in good faith negotiations. Dropping to 59 votes hurts, but we don't have a 60th vote so give the leadership positions to someone with an interest in governing and not payback. If Olympia Snowe wants to join us, great, if not, so be it.
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