Posted on 05/19/2005 2:16:18 PM PDT by moose2004
9 Republicans Who Will Make or Break the Constitutional Option Vote
John McCain, Chuck Hagel, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Mike Dewine, Lincoln Chafee, John Warner, Lindsay Graham, and Arlen Specter
Frist must convince at least 5 of the 9 to vote for the Constitutional option or the vote will not succeed. I strongly favor eliminating the filibuster, but I fear that we don't have those 5 votes yet, getting them will be very difficult, and because of that a compromise may be coming.
Actually, he would only need to convince four of them, since losing five votes would mean 50, and Cheney breaks ties.
I'm surprised Graham is a tossup. He would get hammered in SC if he stopped this. The rest are complete RINO's... good luck getting even one of them. Specter seemed like a maybe though.
That reads like a who's who list of RINOs.
You can probably get Warner and DeWine, but do you trust Voinovich?
Each and every defector should have every possible privilege stripped from them immediately, and the hardest of hardball played to drum them out of the GOP. These fifth-columnists do more damage as GOP members than they would as Democrats (or Socialists, which is what they really are).
If any of them don't vote for the right way, Frist could strip them of all their committee assignments. Perhaps, he needs to do it anyway if they are even considering wavering.
Hopefully alot of them are involved in the negotiations and will vote with the Republicans if the Dems won't come to an agreement.
I'll be seeing to it people I know are also aware of this.
I look at that list and I think the easiest to convince would be Graham, Warner and DeWine.
Then I think that Snowe, Hagel or McCain would be the next likely candidates.
I hate to be an arm-twister but some of these Senators should be made to realize that future judicial recommendations from them will go absolutely nowhere unless they agree to the nuclear option.
I say go back to that and keep them all chained in their chairs for weeks on end. In recent heistory we've only seen faux filibusters -- just the threat of a filibuster is enough to make business grind t a halt. Let's have a real filibuster and seperate the sheep from the goats.
I think every one of these senators needs a primary challenge backed by the entire republican establishment including the white house. I can't think of a single issue on which this bunch vote with the Republicans.
You're right, I stand corrected, but I think convincing 4 of these RINO's is going to be a tough task. This is why I fear a compromise might be coming.
The more he speaks, the more it is obvious he is no conservative.
Actually, the fear at the moment is that if Frist can't get to 50, many would start changing their votes. In other words, either it comes out 50-50, or Frist loses 30-70 or 25-75.
To call for a vote in the middle of a debate would require unanimous consent. So this would not change things.
I agree, I thought Graham was a conservative, but he's turned out to be nothing more than John McCain, Jr.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.