[Common Tator]

Just remember that when a major media reporter or commentato says a Democrat has a 50/50 chance he has seen polls that show 55 to 45 loss with a 4 point margin of error.

But the reason daschle folded is pretty obvious. Democrats do not thave the votes to stop the Republicans from bringing it up for consideration. Daschle could have refused to bring it up. That is what Lott thought he would do. But Bush had lined up enough votes to bring it to the floor with out Daschle

Daschle could not stop the vote and he could not stop the passage. That is the reason it will pass. IT had nothing directly to do with popularity. It was that several Democrat Senators were going to vote to hear it and pass it. There was nothing Daschle could do to stop it. So he will not try.

In this congress with 50 democrats one independent and 49 Republicans, Daschle could not come up with 40 votes. If DAschle does not have 40 votes in this congress he will not come close to that in the next. Bush will have to peal off either 8 or 9 Democrats in the next congress to get the required 60 votes to invoke cloture. This week proves that Bush has more than that number.This may turn out to be a situation where bush gets everything. But some loud mouth democrats over the next 2 years will scream so loud that the public will think the Democrats are holding things up

The public does not buy attacks. The public buys people who offer solutions. The Democrats hate Bush and attack him. It is very counterproductive.

[TheHound]

The dems are stunned right now but don't expect that to last. The extreme libs are taking over, Pelosi et al. All sorts of thing are going to happen now (with the press in tow) homelessness will skyrocket, old people will be dying from lack of care and every piece of economic news that is bad will be greatly highlighted. The dems have perfected this approach since the '50's and will now exploit it for all it's worth.