So the deal's out, and word is that they've got the necessary 60 votes for cloture on the health insurance reform bill.
But if you caught this morning's story on the President's Saturday radio address, you'd have seen this forceful call for action:
The question is whether the minority that opposes these reforms will continue to use parliamentary maneuvers to try and stop the Senate from voting on them.
Whatever their position on health insurance reform, Senators ought to allow an up or down vote. Let’s bring this long and vigorous debate to an end. Let’s deliver on the promise of health insurance reforms that will make our people healthier, our economy stronger, and our future more secure. And as this difficult year comes to a close, let’s show the American people that we are equal to the task of meeting our great challenges.
An up-or-down vote. Senators ought to allow an up-or-down vote.
It's something we all hoped the President would call for, of course. But it lets some of the air out of the tires when the call comes on the day the Senate announces that they've finally found the right combination of concessions to get Democrats to agree to break a filibuster.
When people call for the Senate to allow an up-or-down vote, they're calling for opponents to get out of the way and stop filibustering, so that it doesn't require 60 votes (for cloture) just to get to a final vote on passage.
We'll be getting that up-or-down vote, all right. But not because the President's demands have broken through the logjam of Republican obstructionism. Rather, it'll happen despite its continuance, and even then only at the cost of a laundry list of concessions made to Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson.
That by itself is not to say that the bill is or isn't worth the effort. We've had and will continue to have debate on that.
But are we answering the President's call for an up-or-down vote here? No, we are not. Not in the sense in which everyone else in the world uses the term "up-or-down vote." A straight up-or-down vote would have gotten us to a vote on a bill that didn't need to make these concessions to Lieberman. Didn't need to make these concessions to Nelson. Didn't need to be courting Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins.
So we'll get a vote. And the bill will pass. But today's call for an up-or-down vote just doesn't mean much now that there's a deal in place that obviates the need for the up-or-down vote that most people think of when they hear that phrase.
Though maybe that's just it. Do most people think of breaking the filibuster when they hear the words "up-or-down vote?" Not likely. They hear "vote." And a vote we will have. And by the middle of next week, it'll look for all intents and purposes like it was exactly the vote the President wanted.
Make what you will of that, but it's an interesting lesson in the way the public perceptions game of politics is played. And therefore worth pointing out.