I'm referring to the poll in the diary I put up 12-1/2 hours ago, in this diary. (Warning: the diary starts with an imagine that some find upsetting. May cause brain rumble, cyclone stomach, and eyesqueaks. This warning brought to you by the good folks at Prescott Pharmaceuticals.)
Luckily, you don't have to click that link. I reproduce the poll below. All I ask is that you please take the poll before you read this diary, because as much as possible I'd like you to answer honestly without thinking through the political implications.
(By the way, if any of you front-pagers want to borrow this for a front page poll, please do!)
OK, now scroll down to the poll, then back if (if you want) to read the body of the diary.
OK, are you done? No? Then go take the damn poll down below! I mean it. Grrrrrrrr!
Here -- while you're waiting, look at this "simple chart" I created, showing how much harder it is to get what we want with a larger vote requirement, and see if it makes sense to you. (Note: "quality of reform bill" means "if the ideal progressive bill gets a score of 100%, how high of a score does a bill get if different numbers of Senators are required to pass it." This shows you an estimate of how much needing Lincoln, then Landrieu, then Ben Nelson, then Lieberman, then Snowe, then Collins, hurts our bill. There's more discussion in the linked diary.)
Done waiting? You took the poll? Great!
Now here are the results from "yesterday" (still the same day here on the West Coast) poll, as of 12:35 a.m. Eastern Time. I got 91 responses. No, this is not a scientific sampling, but the effect is, as you'll see, pretty large.
5 say "over 59 now, over 50 later"
8 say "55-59 now, over 50 later"
36 say "50-54 now, over 50 later"
10 say "47-49 now, over 50 later"
9 say "46 or fewer now, over 50 later"
0 say "over 59 now, 47-49 later"
0 say "55-59 now, 47-49 later"
3 say "50-54 now, 47-49 later"
3 say "47-49 now, 47-49 later"
1 say "46 or fewer now, 47-49 later"
0 say "over 59 now, 46 or fewer later"
1 say "55-59 now, 46 or fewer later"
2 say "50-54 now, 46 or fewer later"
0 say "47-49 now, 46 or fewer later"
13 say "46 or fewer now, 46 or fewer later"
Note that I've broken this table into three blocks, based on how many votes we think we'd have for a good public option (an intentionally loose description) after this "fundamental" bill passed. Call the first block "Optimists," the middle "In-betweeners," and the bottom "Pessimists."
I've also broken the table into three groups in a more subtle way. Look at the word "say" in each line, which appears either in boldface, plainface, or italic. The lines with boldface are those in which people say that the amount of support for a good public option in the Senate will go up in the present bill. The plainface lines are ones where people say it will stay the same. The italic lines are ones where people think that support will go down. Let's call these groups respectively "Improvers," "Maintainers," and "Destroyers," terms referring to "our chances," to describe what each group thinks of our chances for a later reconciliation-based public option if this bill passes first.
Let's break down the results into categories.
68 of 91 are Optimists who think we can pass a public option through reconciliation.
7 are In-Betweeners
16 are Pessimists.
Great! So people think we can pass a public option later in 2010 after "this bill" (mostly the Senate bill) passes!
But look at this:
20 are Improvers
65 are Maintainers
6 are Destroyers
This is despite that, because the first vote requires 60 and the second 50, seven of the possible response categories are for Destroyers and only 3 for are Improvers.
I'd like to see this replicated by a better poll than I can do here, but if there's anything to this result I think it bodes well.
Only 6 out of 91 people thought that passing this "60 votes required" bill first actually hurts our chances of getting a public option through reconciliation. 20 people thought that it improves our chances. The rest think it pretty much doesn't matter. (Yes, someone could say that it goes from 49 to 47 and they'd still be a "Maintainer" in my poll, but they could also go from 47 to 49, so my hope is that the errors cancel out.)
What this tells me is that we do have a common ground here. Most of us think that we can pass something pretty good through reconciliation. And, of people expressing a choice, most people think that our chances of building on an early success are greater than of taking the steam out of our effort for a public option by passing this bill.
This, to me, suggests our real common ground here: Pass the Bill, Then Improve It.
Prefer aphorisms? "Put the bird in the hand safely in a sack, then go after the two in the bush."
That's where I am right now too, and it's nice knowing that that's where many of us are, perhaps without realizing it. That gives some reason for optimism -- about both health care reform and netroots co-existence.
Update with 120 votes in: bold = Improvers, underline = Destroyers.
4 say "over 59 now, over 50 later"
8 say "55-59 now, over 50 later"
54 say "50-54 now, over 50 later"
12 say "47-49 now, over 50 later"
9 say "46 or fewer now, over 50 later"
1 say "over 59 now, 47-49 later"
1 say "55-59 now, 47-49 later"
5 say "50-54 now, 47-49 later"
5 say "47-49 now, 47-49 later"
5 say "46 or fewer now, 47-49 later"
0 say "over 59 now, 46 or fewer later"
1 say "55-59 now, 46 or fewer later"
4 say "50-54 now, 46 or fewer later"
1 say "47-49 now, 46 or fewer later"
10 say "46 or fewer now, 46 or fewer later"
Totals:
Optimists: 87
In-Betweeners: 17
Pessiists: 16
Improvers: 26
Maintainers: 81
Destroyers: 13