http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/us/politics/24assess.html?partner=rss&emc=rssThe vote on Monday, in the dead of night, was 60 to 40. The vote on Tuesday, just after daybreak, was 60 to 39. And the vote on Wednesday afternoon, at a civil hour but after less-than-civil debate, was 60 to 39 again — an immutable tally that showed Democrats unwavering in the march to adopt a far-reaching overhaul of the health care system over united Republican opposition.
The votes this week also marked something else: the culmination of more than a generation of partisan polarization of the American political system, and a precipitous decline in collegiality and collaboration in governing that seemed to move in inverse proportion to a rising influence of lobbying, money, the 24-hour news cycle and hostilities on talk shows and in the blogosphere.
The health care legislation is likely to be approved Thursday morning, with the Senate divided on party lines — something that has not happened in modern times on so important a shift in domestic policy, or on major legislation of any kind, lawmakers and Congressional historians said.
The Democrats flaunted their unity on Wednesday at a news conference with nearly their entire caucus in attendance.
Many senators said the current vitriol, which continued on the floor on Wednesday with a dispute over when to cast the final health care vote, was unlike anything they had seen. “It has gotten so much more partisan,” said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia. “This was so wicked. This was so venal.”
Even in a bitter fight over President Bill Clinton’s budget in 2003, decided 51 to 50 with a rare tie-breaker vote by Vice President Al Gore, the partisanship was not as stark as it is today. Although no Republicans voted for Mr. Clinton’s budget, six Democrats joined them in what amounted to bipartisan opposition.
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