About That Repeal Vote....

Well, the "Repeal of the Job Killing Health Care Law" has passed by a 245-189 vote. With one obvious absence, the Democrats managed to keep all but 3 members on their side for this vote. For a point of reference, 34 Democrats voted "no" on the Health Care Law in it's final passage. Of that crew, 13 are still there, and just three voted with Republicans. That means 10 decided today's vote was a joke.

Let's start with the obvious. Eric Cantor spoke a week ago about how he would break the Democratic Caucus using votes like this early on. Well, he failed there. If anything, Nancy Pelosi was even better as Minority Leader than she was in charge. In this sense, the GOP utterly failed. They also were exposed as simply pushing a partisan bill. All in all, this wasn't a successful stunt. It's again, my hope, that they now put forward a proposal. I'm not holding my breath.

Finally, I think it's worth addressing the three Democrats who voted for repeal. Congressmen Mike Ross (D-Arkansas), Dan Boren (D-Oklahoma), and Mike McIntyre (D-North Carolina) all bolted their party, and voted with the GOP on this one. Some would say, this makes sense. They are all from the south. So a lot of people will say, they had to. They may not be right. Last year, 34 Democrats voted against Health Care Reform. Only 13 of them survived the mid-term elections. It doesn't appear that their "no" votes helped. Only time will tell, and representatives represent their districts, not their party, but this doesn't look like it's necessarily a brilliant political move.