I can't tell if some people are just cheap dates or are working some other strategy. But whatever. It's time to stop being polite and time to start getting real.
The public option was dead late last summer. Dead as a door nail in the Senate. The votes were NEVER there for getting the public option through reconciliation (if it could be passed that way at all -- and that is a different whip count than the ones who wanted a public option). After whipping and pushing last spring and summer, we got to around 40-45 and got stuck and no amount of arm-twisting (from the WH or allied progressive political organizations) moved that number. It was only when the WH backed off, that you saw the stragglers come out and say that they were all for it. Cynical politics at its best.
We're going through the same thing right now with the Bennet letter.
The gist
you have a lot of Senate Democrats getting the base's hopes up because, well, it's good personal politics to sign the letter, even if they think actually bringing the public option back into play would be bad legislative politics. I've had multiple offices tell me that they think this whole public option resurgence makes passage of the bill less likely, even as their bosses are being touted as supporters of the public option strategy.
Let's be clear: Many of the signers of the Bennet letter really do support the public option as a matter of policy, but they also know that it's effectively dead and that signing the letter is good politics. Of course, you also have some signers of the Bennet letter who either don't care about the public option or oppose it, but they know that it's effectively dead and that signing the letter is good politics. (If you think letter signee Tom Carper is such a supporter of the public option, then, I want to know what Tom Carper you've been watching all these years.)
And yes, despite all this being just political theater, you still don't even have 30 signees yet.
So that's reality on the vote count in the Senate on the public option. Let's concentrate on what we can get to pass the bill & the fix.
This diary isn't about what could have happened or what should have happened. This is about what DID happen and what is happening right now. If we can't even agree on this, it's going to be tough to figure out what we can learn so that the next time we need to mobilize for legislation, we do a better job.