The Cochran (R-MS) amendment to remove the withdrawal timeline from the Senate supplemental failed 48-50.  Democrats against and Republicans for, with the exceptions of Pryor (D-AR) as well as Lieberman voting for, and Smith (R-OR) and Hagel (R-NE) voting against.  I don't know yet who the other nonvoter was besides Tim Johnson (D-SD).  [Update: from what commenter paj1 says, the other missing Senator may have been Mike Enzi (R-WY).]

[Update, thanks to commenter Terre:] MSNBC has an article up on the vote.

[Update: as noted in Kos's frontpage post and by commenter Magnifico, the roll call is up on the Senate website and shows Enzi as the other absentee.]

[Update: The New York Times and the AP in Yahoo! News have articles up.]

While most people's focus at the moment is on whether the House leadership's version of the Iraq war supplemental appropriation can pass the House tomorrow, it's also important to look a couple of steps down the road.  

Some have argued that compromising with "Blue Dogs" to get restrictive language and a mandate for eventual withdrawal into the House version of the bill is pointless because a supplemental with those restrictions will never pass the Senate.  A recent development suggests otherwise: the New York Times reports that Ben Nelson, the conservative Democratic Senator from Nebraska, has agreed to support a Senate supplemental with restrictive language.  By my vote count, this gives a supplemental with a mandate for (eventual) withdrawal a good chance of passing.

More below the fold...

As they did on the Medicare bill, the Republicans are refusing to gavel closed a House vote in which the count is against them.  The loss would be primarily a symbolic one as I understand it, but it's still worth taking a look at for C-SPAN junkies.

Breaking news: Ben Nighthorse Campbell is not running for re-election.  

I've been posting a bunch of comments in response to people asking for positive reasons to vote for John Kerry, and Randomtask suggested that I make one of them into a diary.  My apologies if that sort of quasi-duplication is improper (though I'm going to be mixing in a significant amount of new material).  

The greatest irritation I've been "hearing" seems to come from people who feel that the only reasons they've heard to vote for Kerry revolve around electability.  So for this diary, I'll restrict myself to non-electability-related reasons why Kerry would make the best President.  I also see Kerry as the most electable candidate, but my reasons for thinking that can wait.