The only Senators who can justify a vote FOR cloture without CONSEQUENCES

[Leopolds Ghost]

I posted this in response to my thread entitled "THIS IS A PARTY VOTE!"

I am posting it in a separate thread because it is so important.

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The only Senators who can justify a vote FOR cloture without
CONSEQUENCES

Edited on Mon Jan-30-06 02:48 PM by Leopolds Ghost

Are senators who sincerely support Alito, as determined by the final vote,
and are willing to defend their vote in the Primaries/elections.

Those Senators are entitled to their own opinion. The Constitution says so.
The actual confirmation vote is a vote of conscience.

Cloture is not a vote in the same sense. It is a procedural motion
that the rival parties CAN AND DO use to FIGHT ONE ANOTHERS' AGENDAS.

Motion to cut off debate, when a colleague within your own caucus is
attempting to sustain a filibuster, is NOT a "vote of conscience."

It is a vote to give the Republicans the right to cut off a fellow senator.
You better have a damn good reason for doing that.

You better genuinely support Alito if you feel strongly enough about it to vote against the Senate
Minority Leader and the Minority whip on a vote of cloture.

Else you are sending a big "fuck you" message straight to Kerry, Reid
and the "Fight or Die" crowd -- a message directed at NO ONE BUT THEM.

Senators like Akaka, Salazar, Landrieu and Lieberman chose to run as Democrats. If the Democratic leadership is spearheading a filibuster and they oppose it to make their own leadership look bad, they better have a damn good reason. Since they are opposed to Alito, those senators do not.

We know they are afraid to vote for Alito because they intend to cast a meaningless vote against him.

This tells us that they are afraid of the consequences of voting FOR a nominee CNN claims is popular...

...but they are NOT afraid of the consequences of going against their own party leadership (and base) and making the entire caucus look like fools for the sake of a foolish consistency, or personal self-aggrandizement.

.......What more reason for party discipline could you ask for???

Why do you think Snowe and Chafee are so unlikely to vote for Cloture?

Because the Republicans ENFORCE party discipline EVEN AGAINST LIBERAL REPUBLICANS
in unsafe seats. They feel it is worth the risk of losing those seats.

And you can BET YOUR ASS they view a procedural cloture motion as a party-line vote.

All I am asking is that Democrats enforce party discipline against Senators
who do not intend to vote for Alito anyway. Is that too much to ask?

[saracat]

1. No it isn't!