Keep in mind that in order for Reconciliation to work, the House must pass the Senate version first.

A couple of thoughts after reading Kim Strassel’s Wall Street Journal article The Summit Sideshow:

There is a concern about how many free passes Pelosi gave to conservative Democrats to vote against ObamaCare during the House vote last year in an effort to provide them political cover. In reality, the concern is not ours, but Pelosi’s.

Those who voted no have seen what happened to those who voted yes. Plummeting poll numbers of conservative Democrats who voted yea on the bill are not encouraging signs for their nay counterparts, so why flip and ruin your political career? For Pelosi? I don’t think so.

Pelosi faces many challenges. One, hold the yes votes. Two, flip the no votes on enough conservative Democrats to pass ObamaCare, and three, hope that retiring conservative Democrats who voted yea originally are not convinced that vote hastened their departure and will express their displeasure at the Pelosi, Reid, Obama triumvirate that seems hell-bent on destroying the Blue Dog conservative Democratic caucus and political careers in the process.

Look for a lot of no votes to stay that way. Especially after yesterday’s lackluster performance by the Democrats at the healthcare “summit”, I don’t see a lot of Representatives rushing towards the cliff for a leadership that has demonstrated nothing but contempt and disregard for the political careers of their colleagues in what amounts to an obsessive-compulsive neurotic rush to shove an unpopular bill down an unwilling public’s throat.

Add to that Senate pressure and a promise by Senate Republicans to throw enough amendments at any reconciliation attempt to keep the ball rolling until 2050. The only way out of that trap will be for the Democrats to evoke the Bryd Option and kill the fillibuster. How many Senate Democrats will sign on to that, and if you are a House member from a state with a Senator that stands firmly against that tactic (a true nuclear option), how do you stand on your vote for ObamaCare? The pressure will be enormous to buckle and vote against ObamaCare. The same argument holds for reconciliation itself.

Newsmax is reporting today that Senator Byrd, the architect of the reconciliation process said using reconciliation to expedite health-care reform would be “an outrage that must be resisted.”

Eric Cantor makes the case that Pelsoi faces an uphill climb getting votes for ObamaCare. I think the problem is an even bigger one that described by Representative Cantor.

I think this bill is dead.

Related:

Pelosi losing grip on the House?

Oba-Kabuki: A box-office bomb

Health Care In Spinsville

Does Pelosi have the votes to pass Obama’s new bill?:

Ironically, for all of the left’s endless whining about the filibuster, it ain’t the Senate that’s their biggest problem anymore. A simple question for you from Philip Klein, who’s been counting heads in the lower chamber for weeks: Given that they’re starting with only 217 “yes” votes, who’ll be stupid enough among the no’s to flip in favor of what even David Brooks is calling a “fiscal time bomb”?

Of the 39 Democrats who voted against the House health care bill [in November], 31 of them were elected in districts that went for John McCain in 2008, according to a TAS analysis. One of the Democratic “no” votes, Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, has subsequently switched parties. Given that a Republican who campaigned on being a vote against the health care bill was just elected to fill the Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy in a state that went for Obama by 26 points, it’s hard to see why anybody in a McCain district who already voted “no” would decide switch their vote to “yes.”

While Obama won the districts of the remaining eight “no” votes, in six cases, he won by only single digits, making them potentially competitive races this time around. And a closer look at several members who represent these areas are not very encouraging to proponents of Obamacare…

The biggest problem she faces is that President Obama’s proposal maintains the abortion provision in the Senate bill, rejecting Rep. Bart Stupak’s more restrictive language. When the bill passed the House the first time around, 41 Democrats voted for the health care bill only after voting for the Stupak amendment. Any of them could explain switching to a “no” vote on a final bill by citing abortion funding. Stupak himself has said there are at least 10 to 12 Democrats who voted for the bill the first time who would vote against it if it didn’t include his amendment (he reiterated Tuesday morning that the Senate abortion language adopted by Obama was still “unacceptable”). One of his co-sponsors, Rep. Brad Ellsworth, said at the time that he was only able to vote for the bill after the Stupak language was adopted, and he’s now running for Senate in Indiana, where a Rasmussen poll taken last month shows voters oppose the health care legislation by a 23-point margin.

An alternative explanation from former Bush economist Keith Hennessey: They know they don’t have the votes and this is all just a blame-shifting exit strategy.

It is possible that we are witnessing uncoordinated Democratic leaders each pursuing their own exit strategy in anticipation of legislative failure:

• The President proposes a “compromise” and blames Republicans for being unreasonable and unconstructive. Legislative failure is the Republicans’ fault, not the President’s.
• Speaker Pelosi continues to press for a two bill strategy in which the House and Senate will pass a new reconciliation bill. If the Senate cannot or will not do so, legislative failure is the Senate’s fault, not the House’s or Speaker Pelosi’s.
• Supported by outside liberals, Leader Reid points out that the House could just take up and pass the Senate-passed bill. Legislative failure is therefore not his fault or the Senate’s.