COMMENTARY: Lincoln’s Vote To Debate A Ruse

By DAVID J. SANDERS

Posted: November 26, 2009 at 4:04 a.m.

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Apparently U.S. Sen.

Blanche Lincoln’s 60th vote was all a big setup.

Early Saturday afternoon, Lincoln was reported to be the last Democrat holdout on the motion to begin debate on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health-care legislation. After all, by then, Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., had announced they supported moving forward with debate, which made Lincoln the pivotal vote.

But on Sunday evening, a couple of Politico reporters shed light on how Lincoln became the deciding vote. All was not as it seemed.

According to Politico, on Friday, Landrieu, who at the time hadn’t yet announced how she would vote, sensed that she and Lincoln needed to imbibe.

So, she called her friend and invited her to share a bottle of wine, and later that night the two of them dined at a local Italian restaurant with Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Mark Warner, D-Va.

Their dinner conversation didn’t focus too heavily on health care; it didn’t need to.

According to the report, “by then, Lincoln had already made up her mind: She would become the 60th vote to bring President Barack Obama’s health care initiative to the Senate floor.”

Though on board to be No. 60, oddly enough, Lincoln warned Democratic leaders the next day on the Senate floor that her vote was not a lock. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.,nearly let the cat out of the bag Friday afternoon when he told reporters Lincoln had assured Reid she would vote “aye.” Her staff rushed to quell the rumor claiming that no one speaks for the senator but the senator.

In announcing that she’d vote “aye,” just after 2 p.m. on Saturday, she also expressed reservation by claiming she would not vote in favor of a final bill if it contained a public option.

Lincoln was never going to be the one Democrat who killed debate on health care, and she got what she wanted - a setup, a series of cascading events designed to make her appear, at least on Saturday, to be her party’s savior.

There was this peculiar part of the story, which seemed to indicate everything was planned.

Lincoln explained to the reporter that she “didn’t rely on any outside advice in coming to her decision” or the manner in which she would announce her vote.

Really, not even Landrieu or Reid?

Faced with the prospect of a potentially brutal re-election fight in the general election next year, Lincoln’s colleagues clearly realized she needed to be seen asadvancing the Democrats’ health care agenda in order to stave off an intra-party insurrection back home.

Last week, Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm based in North Carolina, released the results of a survey of likely voters in Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District, that showed only 43 percent of Democrats give her positive marks, while 37 percent view her negatively; 30 percent of Democrats surveyed think she’s too conservative.

Troubling numbers, especially considering that Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who liberals have encouraged to challenge Lincoln in a primary, was playing host to the National Association of Free Clinics on Saturday. The clinic (which provided free healthcare services to some 1,200 uninsured) was designed as a way of putting pressure on fence sitting moderate Democrats such as Lincoln.

The pressure is gone for now.

She can only hope that Nelson, or Sen. Joe Liebermann, I-Conn., who is reportedly digging in his heels by pledging a filibuster if the final bill contains a public option, will eventually kill the legislation so she doesn’t have to.

But Lincoln should know that voters of all political stripes back home recognize a ruse when they see one.

After all, in this climate of heightened political awareness, the journey is as important as the destination.

DAVID J. SANDERS WRITES TWICE WEEKLY FOR THE ARKANSAS NEWS BUREAU IN LITTLE ROCK.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/26/2009

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