Republicans Threaten Their Moderates

Well, the Senate finally passed the President's Stimulus Bill, and the bill now goes to a House/Senate conference committee to work out differences between the House and Senate bills. Once the conferees decide on a version, it will need to be approved by the House and Senate again, before it goes to the President for his signature.

The House is no problem. There are plenty enough Democrats in the House to overwhelmingly pass the bill. It is the Senate that might present a problem. There are enough Democrats to pass the bill, but there aren't enough to stop a filibuster -- that takes 60 votes, and the Democrats only have 58.

The original Senate version was passed 61 to 37, with three moderate Republicans (pictured) voting with the Democrats -- Sen. Specter (Pennsylvania), Sen. Snowe (Maine) and Sen. Collins (Maine). It is hoped that these moderate Republicans will also support the conference committee version of the bill. But the right-wing nuts in the party are threatening the three moderates.

The National Republican Trust PAC is threatening to find and finance right-wing opponents for the three in their next primary (Specter is the only one running in 2010). Frankly, it looks more like a case of right-wingers being ready to lose three more senate seats to Democrats because they want to throw a tantrum.

All three of these senators are very popular in their states and could probably get re-elected even though their states voted heavily Democratic in the last presidential election. They could probably defeat a right-wing opponent, but if they lost, it would almost certainly result in the Democratic candidate winning in the general election. I hope the wingers do try this, because it would just show how weak they are in the Northeast.

The wingers are politically bankrupt. They only have one solution, and they want to use it to solve every problem -- huge tax cuts for the rich. The people have already seen the result of this kind of thinking. They know that is exactly why we are in our current economic mess.

The Republicans think they can stage a political comeback by fighting everything President Obama and the Democrats try to do. They are wrong. If that's all they have, they're going to be embarrassed again in 2010.

I think they would also be wrong to try and filibuster the bill. It might thrill their small base, but it would infuriate the majority of Americans. They would find their entire party marginalized.