A Few Short

Despite the CW that House Dems would sit on their hands and let the Senate figure out the war funding mess, House Dems are coming up with fresh ideas for short term funding that imminently make sense. Yet, Senator Reid has signaled that any such legislation is DOA. Why? I think it's quite simple. He just doesn't have the votes.

Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, said he would be reluctant to support it unless it attracted enough bipartisan support to offset criticism that it was shortchanging American troops.

He and others said they would prefer that negotiations between the White House and Congress focus on reaching agreement on a measure that would pay for the war through Sept. 30, with the legislation including a set of benchmarks by which to measure the Iraqi government’s progress. Talks between lawmakers and senior White House officials were tentatively set to resume Wednesday.

Like it or not (and I don't), there is a significant contingent of conservative Senate Democrats that hold the balance, much like the few centrist Republicans in the previous Congress. It's gonna take more polls, more deaths, more voter feedback to get these guys off the dime.