Two things:
One is that I'm really fucking sick of the term "conservative Democrat." The real definition is "someone who decided to run as a Democrat in a state whose citizens hates minorities."
Second is the twisted nature of the filibuster in the Senate. (Let's assume that the reason they need 60 to pass this isn't because of the budget legalese, but rather the implicit threat of a filibuster.) In theory, the Senate is supposed to be undemocratic -- proportional representation is reserved for the House. That's okay. Except on an issue like the stimulus. Now, there's no chance that a version that Obama wants to pass the House won't pass the House; nearly every Blue Dog would have to vote nay for that to happen. So the House is basically irrelevant, and the Senate is where the cutting and adding is done. Except in the Senate, not only does Nebraska have the same number of votes as New York, but Ben Nelson is somehow a power broker because a simple majority isn't sufficient. And this is why we have him saying stuff like this:
"Well, y'know, I don't know where he's from, but I'll tell you, in Nebraska, $60 billion for education on top of $40 billion, that's a pretty big commitment to education nationwide."I guess this is what one does to represent his Nebraskan constituency: mindlessly demagogue the issue and throw out randomly huge monetary sums to wow idiot hick voters. But the idea that Nelson is wielding sizeable clout in creating the terms of a recovery package which is fairly obviously not intended to save Nebraska from it's OMFG 4% unemployment is hilarious. Are we going to give Nebraska 1/50th of the money?
