Everyone's pissed about the SFC results. Personally, I got at least one pleasant surprise. Bill Nelson, who is simultaneously begging Obama for money to save the Florida NASA and supporting contractor base (I move I wholeheartedly support, BTW) and kicking him in the teeth, managed to vote for at least one of the public option amendments. The most conservative committee in the Senate just voted 13-10 to knock down what was left of the Public Option. Skin of the teeth in the most difficult territory. It's a decent place to start.
But, the next question is, where does this go next? Huge and excellent efforts have been spent on making the House position intractable, with a large Progressive bloc out to shoot down anything without a public option in it. Of course, we've not wanted it to come down to a tug-of-war between yes and no, but between the best options. Follow below for a way idle speculation can actually help us.
We've got a huge number of commentators and those with knowledge of who will be doing what when and where. So, it's time for us to put on our Fantasy Congress hats to prepare for the next phase (or perhaps the next after that). Namely, once a Senate bill is passed, who will be named to the Conference Committee?
In the stimulus battle, we saw how various constituencies and projects were chiseled away to make the price tag "acceptable" in the big picture. We're probably going to see the same in the new conference committee.
So the question is, who will be drafted to this new body and what axes will be ground on the Senate side? The House side will be important as well, but will have some stronger threats to push their position, namely a suddenly "misbehaved" left wing with enough numbers to prevent a couple of wayward Republicans in liberal districts from getting their way.
Since the cycle of these things is anger, acceptance, and then action, I was hoping to give everyone something to do during the anger phase that might be helpful.
So, play-at-home pundits, what say you? Who will Reid post on his side of the committee?