Climate Legislation Was Likely Dead Before Coakley’s Loss
The only we are able to govern successfully in this country is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates,” Bayh said. “Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country — that’s not going to work too well.”
Matt Yglesias hits this spot on:
Okay. Now just consider that the guy who said this is one of the 60 Democratic votes. Suppose Coakley surprises everyone and squeaks out a narrow victory. Does this sound to you like Evan Bayh will jump for joy and start talking about how eager he is to vote for a cap-and-trade bill or a comprehensive immigration reform? Not to me it doesn’t. And that’s not a new sentiment from him. And he’s far from the only one. Scott Brown joining the Senate will make it impossible to make big progress on the big issues facing the country. But a number of “centrist” Democrats have been making it clear for a while now that they don’t want to make big progress on the big issues facing the country. That’s too bad, and Brown winning will only make things worse. We’re much more likely looking at a situation where Brown’s victory becomes an excuse for people not to do things they didn’t want to do anyway than a situation where Brown’s victory is the actual reason those things can’t be done.
Exactly. There are at least half a dozen Senate Democrats with no interest in enacting the agenda Democrats were swept into office with. As far as I can tell, last night’s election took us from needing 5-7 Republican votes in the Senate for a climate bill to needing 6-8. Either way, it wasn’t going to happen this year. We may as well put the blame for this where it belongs — on the coal/oil/agriculture state Democrats who have been arguing for inaction for the past several months.
