I half wonder if the Stupak Amendment wasn’t made to fail, to give a good handful of the most conservative democrats (apparently a lordly more of them than you’d expect — a few of  them I genuinely have to wonder why they are Democrats) one bonafida in their districts — as they garnered a full ten members of Congress to the vote — in re-election, some roosters coming home to roast off of 2006 strategy in particular of “Fit the District” slotting (one that was best represented with Senator Bob Casey in Pennsylvania), and really probably an unnecessary over-reach in the gauge of bringing about a “Big Tent” with a bit too reflexive mood in picking the more “moderate” or conservative candidate in various primaries.

They don’t call these things “Wedge Issues” for no reason.

All the while, with the suspicion that it will be blown up down the road.  These congress members get their Issue Wedge checked off to stand proud and proclaim themselves “Not a Libural”, and while the repercussions of the Issue having been thrown out there in the first place are pretty toxic politically, it’s less toxic for the cynical Democratic cause of the “Democratic Party Incumbent Racket” than not getting a damned Health Care bill passed.

Know your Caro, from the second volume on Lyndon Johnson Master of the Senate — a quick google search to get a quick encapsulation of some of the important cynical wheel-deeling:

Caro lays out the cajoling, wheeling, dealing, strong arming, and compromising in the fight for the civil rights bill as well as the complicated linkages between the civil rights bill and other legislation to obtain LBJ’s winning coalition. Among other things, Johnson brokered a deal between Western Democrats who wanted public power and conservative Southern Democrats who wanted the most watered down civil rights bill possible. The Southerners voted for a public power bill they had previously opposed, but did not filibuster the emerging civil rights bills once key changes were made. The Southerners opposed the bill on the floor and voted against it, but would never used the one weapon which could have killed it entirely. The Western Democrats got their public power (at least in the Senate) and supported watering down the civil rights bill which would not hurt them politically back home in that era. Northern Democrats eventually were reconciled to the fact that some bill was better than nothing and Southern Democrats were reconciled to the fact that some bill was inevitable.

The key matter in my half-baked political theory:  You know why the Southern Democrats voted for the Public Power?  The Public Power, at least in the crucial Southern Powerbrokers’ minds, was not meant to Stand.  It would be killed just down the road, in our rather noxious Senate system, though the Western Democrats would still be able to trump it in their elections.  But it was an important show of strength of reliability at that juncture.
Of course, things might have been able to work out better for a real civil rights bill if, at Vice President Nixon’s entreaty to Senate Liberals such as Hubert Humphrey at the start of the session, they had gone ahead and killed the Filibuster.  It rhymes familiarity to the current debate as the Democratic leadership holds out 60 Senators — or else ponders Reconciliation.

Then again, the Stupak Amendment has that “throw a bomb into the proceedings” feel to it — an issue that had been neutralized, your Bob Casey, Jr. roaming about for some party splinters.

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