Pondering last week’s House Farm bill failure.  The Center Cannot Hold, as famed Frustrated  Centrist YB Yeats put it.  And here’s what we get.

Republicans were quick to blame Democrats for the farm bill’s failure, with multiple senior aides saying that Democrats had promised to deliver at least 40 votes to get the measure over the line. Democrats didn’t dispute that there was an initial deal, but the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee warned before the vote that many saw the Southerland amendment as a deal-breaker.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) echoed the sentiment later, rather pointedly casting aspersions on Boehner’s ability to manage his fractious, tea party-divided caucus.
“It’s always interesting to me when people blame other people for their own failures,” Pelosi said. “It’s silly, it’s sad, it’s juvenile, it’s unprofessional, it’s amateur hour.”
The measure failed 195 to 234, with 62 Republicans voting against it. Pelosi noted that nearly all of the GOP opponents — 58 of them – voted for Southerland’s amendment.
“I just can’t get over the fact that 58 republicans voted for an amendment that would sink the bill,” Pelosi said. “It’s a stunning thing. Why would you give people an amendment that’s going to kill your bill, and then go blame it on somebody else?”

Because.

House GOP leadership aides dismissed the idea that having 62 members of their own conference vote against the bill was significant, telling reporters Republican votes were exactly as expected.
“The Democrats told us clearly right before the vote that they knew that the Southerland amendment was going to pass, and they had decided at the last minute that they were going to pull their support,” a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), told reporters. “This was a complete collapse of professionalism and maturity on the Democratic Party’s part.”

Because.

Supposedly we have a poisoning of the well here, but they’

Actually, as always, it is interesting to note the Democrats coming on board and the Republicans ditching the board.

Hm.  It failed 234 to 195.  And looking over the usual suspects of the most conservative Democrats lodged in Republican districts (yes, a lot fewer than after the 2010 debacle) — urm… mixed in terms of willingness to jump the ship on Southerland.  I note, Oregonians, Kurt Schraeder was on board.  On the Republican side, I suppose we’re lodged back in the “acutally two parties” land — I think the map shows a large contingency in the South, but…

The other roll call of note.  Feel free to find the four Republican splintering toward the logical course, not poisoning the bill.

And the other spot we’re a “Center” is going to “hold” or “fall apart”… immigration… stare at the map of the Senators who voted aye and nay for the mess of a bill that — urm… 15 ayes versus 27 nos for the Republicans.  No, I don’t see how this would placate the Boehner’s caucus split — who, I guess, wants this to pass while letting as many Republicans off the hook in opposing it as he can allow.  (Also.  Which side can you claim is the Republican Establishment on the issue?)

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