–As Kate writes, political posturing pervades ahead of Thursday’s health care summit with Democrats and Republicans scrambling to score points. There’s plenty of that to come in the next 48 hours.
–To wit: Obama communications chief Dan Pfeiffer offers to post a Republican plan on the White House blog in a transparently backhanded dig at their proposals.
–And Minority Whip Eric Cantor rules out any chance of a deal by telling “Good Morning America” the Obama plan posted yesterday is a “non-starter.”
–Bipartisanship is not entirely dead. As Jay mentioned, the Senate managed to invoke cloture on Leader Reid’s jobs bill last night with five Republicans on board. Scott Brown, the 41st member many Republicans hoped would be blocking Democratic legislation, joined Snowe, Collins, Bond and Voinovich to break the filibuster.
–Ben Smith reads into Brown’s decision: “He’s choosing a shot at re-election in Massachusetts — and a lot of power in the Senate — over conservative stardom…”
–Getting the bill through looks to me like a win for Reid when he desperately needs one, and something Democrats really want to get done before taking another vote on health care.
–In wake of cooperation on the jobs vote Nate Silver asks, “Is 56 the new 60?”
–Marc Ambinder delves into the tricky business of reading polling on independents, explaining a key difference between identification and behavior. The short version: Most self-identified indys are every bit as partisan as party stalwarts at the ballot box.
–David Brooks laments what he sees as the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of the excise tax, and gives this sunny take on the state of health reform legislation: “It has just become a fiscal time bomb. The revenue will never come.”
-And finally, when it rains it pours. Michael Steele gets some heat for spending freely at the RNC and Charlie Crist loses some staff.
What did I miss?
