These final stages of the healthcare reform process have the potential to make us totally lose our shpadoinkle. I mean, we're talking many new levels of congressional and media stupid. Stupid about process, stupid about the content of the various bills, stupid about what's happening in the White House.
We may have passed a crucial stage today, but the real insanity has yet to begin. So sometimes it's helpful to have an array of touchstones established prior to such an endeavor. Here are the two most important questions moving forward, and everything else -- all the rest of the crazy noise -- is secondary:
1) Will Harry Reid enforce lockstep on 60 votes for cloture, especially if there's a robust public option attached to the Senate and final bills?
2) Will the House Progressive Caucus hold together on their opposition to any legislation without a robust public option?
These are the most important questions.
60 votes against the filibuster will allow a bill with the public option to pass with 50-plus-Biden in the final vote. And if the progressives hold their caucus together, there will have to be a robust public option in the final bill, or else healthcare reform dies. It doesn't matter what Kent Conrad says or what douchery Lieberman engages in -- if there's 60 votes for cloture and the progressives hold together, there will absolutely be healthcare reform with a public option.