Apparently the secret to passing ObamaCare is for the President to acknowledge that all Members of Congress have something they don’t like about the bill, but to vote for it regardless:

AP reports the President said in New York yesterday:

“The bill you least like” improves coverage for millions, he said in New York. “Let’s make sure that we keep our eye on the prize.”

Seems a little strange to announce this in New York, a blue state, that members need to hold their nose and vote for health care reform. Is this the winning formula? Is holding New York members of Congress becoming tough? And if the President needed to say this in New York, what does this mean for the rest of the country?

The roll call vote on the motion to proceed to S. 1776 is instructive of what happens to a bill that cannot stop the filibuster on the motion to proceed. President Obama and the White House asked Senator Reid to put $247 billion in new spending off budget to buy off the American Medical Association. Majority Leader Reid was embarrassed. The White House, Senator Reid said, wanted him to bring the bill up. He needed 60 votes to stop the filibuster. He got 47 votes. Missed the mark by 13 votes. Here is the simple filibuster math (60 minus 13 = 47.)

Perhaps this is why President Obama did not go public on the vote, he did not want to risk a Chicago is knocked out in the first round of voting despite his personal lobbying for the Olympics type experience.

This is a lesson for everyone: no cloture, no laundry. And 60 votes in the Senate is a tough number to hit, even with 60 Democratic voting Senators (58 Dems and two independents). S. 1776 is dead. The bill did not even make it past the motion to proceed.

Today, AP ran a story questioning whether President Obama has the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster on ObamaCare. Really? Really, really. Here is some of Charles Babington’s piece:

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While Senator Snowe’s yes vote in the Senate Finance Committee was a shock to liberals and conservatives, it is neither a defeat for conservatives nor a victory for liberals. The bill would have passed Committee regardless of how Sen. Snowe voted.

Senator Snowe, in her own words, said her vote was a maybe on the Senate floor. Smart political observers like Carrie Budoff Brown at Politico understand that Snowe’s vote radically increases the likelihood of Dem-on-Dem political violence over any single significant move to the left that the Democratic Leadership contemplates when they attempt to merge the bill.

Think of the Snowe vote as tent pegs holding the bill in place, while liberal generated wind storms attempt to move the tent to the left. The chances of the pegs coming out and the tent being blown like a tumbleweed are real and will be devastating to the bill.

Plus, Senator Snowe’s voice now carries a high-wattage amplifier with it inside the Democratic leadership. The liberals want a public option? Lose Snowe. Want to bring up a Vapor bill? Snowe is at no. Want to spring legislative language on the Senate without a CBO score of the language? Snowe is at no and so are eight other Democratic Senators who sent a letter to Majority Leader Reid last week requesting a CBO score on actual legislative language and a 72 hour review period by the public of the bill prior to its consideration on the Senate floor. The letter was backed up with threats by the Democratic Senators to employ procedural hurdles if there request is not met, as Congressional Quarterly reported on October 6:

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