It does not feel like it, but we are winning the war against ObamaCare.

You may feel like the political system is broken and the Democrats are not listening to the voters. You feel that way because it is true, the Democrats are not listening. But that does not mean the bill will not die — because it turns out that the two Independent Senators are listening.

Clearly, the Democratic Senate leadership and the White House put so much pressure on the so-called moderate Senators to win this one vote to proceed to the bill, they created a political mirage that the bill’s chances are strong. But they are not. The bill is very brittle, and when it implodes, it will shatter.

As the bill stands right now, the Democrats cannot pass it. They cannot get to 60 votes on the vote to end the filibuster of the bill.

If they try to take the public option out, Senator Sanders and others (Burris, Brown and Franken) are threatening to vote against ending the filibuster. If they keep the public option in, then Senator Lieberman has threatened to vote against ending the filibuster. Either way — public option in or out — the bill dies. And Senator Sanders is not going to agree to any co-oped-trigger-opt-out compromise on the public option.

Is it any surprise that the two Independent Senators have put the Senate in this position? They are listening to the public, and are playing a role that no single Democratic Senator has the courage to play — you know, listen to your voters.

Turns out the moderates like Senators Lincoln, Landrieu and Nelson are now viewed by their voters as servants of Senator Reid and the White House. They destroyed all their work to try and get their voters to see them as something other than liberal Democrats who will just spend and tax and spend. This was the highest price Senator Reid paid to win the vote to proceed to the bill: he has forced the so-called moderate Senators look like lap-dogs.

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Dem Senators are peeling off of President Obama’s government takeover of health care and its liberal fantasy land that spends more than a trillion and contains hundreds of billions in new taxes.

As James Carville told CNN, President Obama only has 57 votes.

Reuters James Pethokoukis is reporting that Senators Liberman, Landrieu and Nelson are at NO, and Bayh maybe too. Pethokoukis is reporting the same thing Hammond said in his memo, that reconciliation is a no-go. (Politico is reporting, correctly, that reconciliation rules would strip the Stupak amendment.)

As we all know, no 60 votes, no laundry. (Senator Reid needs 60 votes to break the filibuster on the motion to proceed to consider the bill. If he does not get 60 votes, ObamaCare never comes up on the Senate floor.)

There are whispers in Washington watering holes that some Dem Senators are quietly hoping Senator Nelson will vote against cloture on the motion to proceed. This will let the Senators who are up in 2010 off the hook from the nightmare of proceeding to this politically toxic bill.

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Today, in editorializing about Scozzafava’s collapse, the normally astute editors of The Wall Street Journal join the ranks of those chronically infatuated with equating the supposed extremism of the right with that of the left. This apples-to-oranges nonsense is made only worse by the editors’ absurd acceptance of the “litmus test” argument about supposed conservative rejection of those who don’t “agree with them on every issue.”

Unfortunately, this kind of analysis is something that could be found in a not-so-good high school student newspaper, and is deserving of some questions for the WSJ editors:

First, please name any major conservative politician, pundit, talk radio show host or blogger who has ever seriously said – or even implied – that a Republican candidate need agree with them on every issue. Please be specific.

Second, who is it – specifically – that is as “bloody-minded and intolerant of all dissent as the hard left is at the Daily Kos,” and on what issue or issues in particular? Because comparing a conservative’s intolerance of politicians who fail to support our soldiers, or who appease terrorists, or who confirm extreme activist judges, or who constantly embrace big government spending, or who support economy-killing environmental policy, or who “negotiate” a form of socialized medicine… with those on the left’s intolerance of those who don’t do enough of these things is absurd.

Third, which “right-wing blogger or talk show host” prefers “having Democrats in power because it drives up their own ratings,” specifically? Rush? Sean? Levin? RedState? National Review Online? Who?

Fourth, who is calling for a candidate in Illinois, California or Connecticut to sound like Tom DeLay, specifically? And, what if some conservative did? Which specific principles, issues, or policies advocated by Mr. Delay would be worthy of trading for a coveted congressional or senate seat?

Fifth, Democrats did not drive Joe Lieberman out of the party in any practical sense. He still caucuses with them and still votes with them on most issues not involving middle east policy. And even if the ant-war left crazies did force him to run as an Independent Democrat, how is that comparable to the Hoffman-Scozzafava situation? Scozzafava isn’t even close to a Republican much less a conservative. Lieberman was the Democrats’ VP candidate just 6 years prior to his switch. He is – on most issues – liberal.

This is the fallacy of the “litmus test” argument. It’s ridiculous to suggest that having even a bare minimum of standard of a belief in liberty, limited government, fiscal responsibility, strong national security, respect for life, American exceptionalism and a general sense of getting the government to leave us the hell alone is some kind of litmus test.

Until conservatives stop comparing that which is not comparable – and stop trying to “make nice” in an environment where our way of life is under attack – the Republican Party and the health of our nation will flounder.

Dede Scozzafava is the woman some Republicans call a “new style of Republican” who is going to help usher in a new Republican revolution.

Not likely. Even the Wall Street Journal has caught on.

Republicans are telling themselves that a political wave is building that could carry them to big election gains next year. Judging by their performance so far in a special election in New York, however, they deserve to wander in the minority for another generation or two. . . .

Democrats want to portray this race as a familiar moderate-conservative GOP split, but the real issue is why Ms. Scozzafava is a Republican at all. She has voted for so many tax increases that the Democrat is attacking her as a tax raiser. She supported the Obama stimulus, and she favors “card check” to make union organizing easier, or at least she did until a recent flip-flop.She has run more than once on the line of the Working Families Party, which is aligned with Acorn. Her voting record in Albany puts her to the left of nearly half of the Democrats in the assembly. She also favors gay marriage, which is to the left of Mr. Obama.

The GOP does deserve to wander in the wilderness for another few generations if Scozzafava wins.

The NRCC and House Republican leadership needs to focus on crushing the Democrat now instead of building up Scozzafava. Sinking with the ship is not a viable option.

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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The MSM would like the American public to believe that the Senate Finance Committee bill was scored by the Congressional Budget Office. After all, WaPo, the NYT and the WSJ reported:

WaPo: “The bill would cost $829 billion over the next decade.”

NYT: “The budget office analyzed the bill … its newly projected cost — $829 billion over 10 years.”

WSJ: “The latest Senate health bill will cost $829 billion over a decade.”

But it is a score of a vapor bill — a bill that has no legislative language — and so with much fanfare and pomp the CBO has delivered a Vapor Score of a Vapor Bill. CBO has stated publicly and repeatedly that it cannot accurately score any bill without the legislative language — which does not exist so CBO cannot have it.

Heritage tagged this correctly its Bait and Switch blog:

As the Politico reported yesterday: “While the media and lawmakers often shorthand a CBO letter as a “score” or “cost estimate,” today’s CBO letter is neither. Because the bill is still in “conceptual,” or layman’s terms, CBO’s letter today was a “preliminary analysis.” For it to be an official cost estimate, the bill has to be translated into legislative language.”

And here is a thought from Ryan Ellis at ATR, the reason the latest ObamaCare bill scores so low is because of all the taxes. Here is the list.

For a more wonky analysis of the Vapor Score, see the blog by Donald Marron, a former CBO economist here, and from which the quotes from the MSM above were taken.

Republicans have been living by the Congressional Budget Office’s numbers and some say the GOP now must die by those numbers.

Not so fast. Above the fold on page one of the Wall Street Journal today is this article that “New Math Boosts Health Plan.” What new math?

The CBO has released numbers on the Senate’s health care plan — never mind that the legislation remains mostly in vapors and key details will not be released until it is too late for a new CBO score. In any event, the CBO projects the Senate health care plan will cost more, but will lower the deficit.

How can a plan go from $774 billion over ten years to $829 billion over ten years and lower the deficit? Exactly in ways Barack Obama said would not happen.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found the sweeping measure will cover 94% of nonelderly legal U.S. residents, up from about 83% currently. The bill will cut the deficit by $81 billion over the 10-year period, owing to trims in Medicare spending and new taxes.

What? They’re going to cut Medicare and raise taxes? How can that be?

According to Barack Obama in his speech to Congress last month, “The middle class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of 1 percent each year — one-tenth of 1 percent — it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term.” But the Wall Street Journal tells us

Most of the bill’s funding comes from $404 billion in cuts to Medicare and other government insurance programs that Democrats say will reduce waste but won’t hurt recipients’ benefits. An additional $201 billion comes from a 40% excise tax on particularly generous health-insurance plans levied on insurers. The rest comes from annual fees on insurers, medical-device makers and pharmaceutical companies, as well as a series of other changes to the tax treatment of health expenses.

Those fees are actually taxes — like a tax on breast pumps for nursing moms, etc.

Then there is the “waste, fraud, and abuse” in Medicare. One must first wonder why the Democrats are waiting until now to take care of it. One must then wonder if Nancy Ann DeParle, the women charged with rooting out the waste, fraud, and abuse will be up to the job, considering she has failed every time she tried and then lined her pocket in the private sector by capitalizing on her failure.

Former governor and VP candidate Sarah Palin wrote a pretty good op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on the health care situation - one where she points out, repeatedly, that we’re being asked to blindly fund a government program that will affect every aspect of our life and will not save us money in either the short or long term.  As Ace of Spades notes, this is not going to cover new ground for the people already intimately familiar with the debate - but for those who aren’t, it will give a good idea of conservative objections to Obamacare, not to mention providing the alternatives that the Democrats are pretending that the Republicans aren’t providing.  All in all, useful and timely.

And, as an added, special bonus, it includes the written equivalent of a smack on the nose:

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He’s asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . .”

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats’ proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through “normal political channels,” they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats’ proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we’ve come to expect from this administration.

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Simple, clear, plain english is good when it comes to health care. It is hard to do unless you are really good.

It is even more difficult to make talking about health care interesting and witty.

The winner is George Newman writing in the Wall Street Journal in an article titled: “Parsing the Health Reform Arguments.”

If you are going to read any one thing on health care, read Newman’s piece.

If you are going to read any two things on health care, read this from Forbes by Shikha Dalmia. All of the foregoing comments apply to this piece as well.

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, argues in Salon today that President Obama’s brand of economics is “revolutionary.”  Only an Ivy League educated lefty economist (i.e. - Keith Olbermann graduate of Cownell could not pull this one off) could have the intellectual gall to argue that the Obama budget is both “conservative” in the details, yet “revolutionary” in scope.  The left is gearing up for a public relations campaign (some would say a propaganda war) to sell the Obama budget and it seems as if the left will use every catch phrase possible to sell this plan. 

Reich argues that Obama’s brand of economics is ”an economic philosophy exactly the opposite of the one that’s dominated America for more than a quarter century.”  If by economic philosophy Reich means capitalism, then I think conservatives agree that Obamanomics would move the United States away from the free market to expand the role of government in health care, environmental issues and tax policy.  The era of big government is back and Robert Reich is cheerleading from the sidelines.

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