Hyde & Seek

As he seeks 60 votes on health care, Harry Reid can take one imperfect, but valuable, lesson from the House: Despite heated threats, liberals stuck with their leader.

-- Of the 39 House Dems who defied Pelosi on 11/7, only one did so from the Left: the eccentric and unpredictable Dennis Kucinich, who recently had fumed that leaders stripped his single-payer amendment from the bill without notifying him. Only eight dissenting Dems hail from districts Pres. Obama carried in '08. Liberals backed the bill despite an anti-abortion add-on that effectively codified the Hyde amendment.

-- The Senate is, of course, a different world, where even one "Kucinich" could kill the bill unless Dems can draw GOPers across the aisle. But while Reid is now grappling with potential defections from Burris and Sanders, the leverage of those liberals may have been diluted by the likes of DeGette, Woolsey and Grijalva, all of whom ultimately voted "yes" in the House.

-- The Senate vote is weeks away. And, as we saw in the House (where abortion rights, not the public option, became the bill's last-minute snag), the debate may look very different by the time that roll is called. The NY Daily News this a.m. quotes Schumer saying that every Senate Dem, "from the most liberal to [the] most conservative, knows we have to pass a bill." In the end, Reid's success will depend on whether Schumer is correct.