I just read this article about the reaction when McCain voted no on the so called skinny skinny repeal of Obamacare.
My understanding is that this sort of thing doesn’t happen these days. Do you all think that McConnell thought that McCain was actually going to vote yes? Was this a genuine surprise to the other senators, or do you all think the article is exaggerating the response? Either way, I’m glad McCain saved several million people from losing their health insurance.
Not sure “were there really gasps from the audience?” deserves it’s own thread but you can judge for yourself:
Looks like McCain came in a little late, as you can hear they are calling the "P"s, gave his vote by walking up to the counter and there’s definitely some shock in the crowd.
538 had a pretty good live blog last night:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/senate-vote-health-care/
Around midnight, it looked like it was going to passed. Around 12:30, it looked like McCain was changing his mind. The vote went down an hour later.
It’s the aspect of McConnell not knowing how it was going to go that fascinates me. I thought hay typically when it looks like something won’t pass they just decide not to vote at all and make up an excuse as to why they didn’t vote. I don’t recall ever seeing a vote in the senate or house be an actual surprise.
Well they brought Pence in to break an expected tie, so McConnell clearly thought McCain was probably on board. You don’t keep the VP up til 1:00am for nothing.
I just want to say that I love the term “skinny repeal”. One has to look for small bits of cheer in these days of gloom.
McCain demanded that Ryan solidly guarantee that the House would play along as scripted. Not just “Probably” or “I’ll try” but “Fer sure, fer sure”. Ryan either wouldn’t or couldn’t deliver, opening the possibility that the House could take that shriveled sack of a bill and actually pass it.
Which would have been pretty bad. (Can I nominate myself for Understatement of the Year?)
Hadn’t been for the ladies of the Steel Spine Sewing Circle it wouldn’t have mattered. And may the Goddess hold them close to Her bounteous bosom all the days of their lives, amen.
I watched the video of McCain’s vote here. This version is a little grainy, but it looks like Schumer is pretty pleased as McCain walks up to vote. McConnell seems to show no reaction. I imagine Schumer and McConnell both knew what was coming. It did seem to be a surprise to a lot of other people in the room.
After the vote, when some start applauding or talking, it Schumer waves his hand at the crowd a couple times. It looked to me like he was shushing them, I guess becuase he didn’t want to seem to gloat? Or was he just signalling “it’s dead”?
No you don’t. Mother would disapprove.
Schumer was shushing them. He knew how the Turtle would try to use that, as he did minutes later.
A couple of other things I noticed last night: McConnell standing there with arms folded, unsuccessfully attempting to stare down McCain as he gave the ‘thumbs down.’ And McConnell again, trying to prevent Schumer from speaking in response by immediately moving ahead to the Defense authorization bill after his speech.
Porn Name!
By the time McCain actually cast his vote, word had gotten around, particularly from the thumbs-down he gave an hour before. But the point is that McConnell brought the bill to the floor thinking it would pass. McCain’s decision was a surprise to him.
He was telling them not to gloat.
Killjoy! I wouldn’t have set off air horns or thrown confetti across the aisle. But I’d a been grinning like a sumbitch!
I think McConnell never had any intention of not holding an eventual vote. As it stands, he can point to the three defectors and place the blame on them. And he doesn’t have to deal with the failure of not even being able to hold a vote on something.
I do think that McConnell had some belief when putting the bill out finally that the assurances from Ryan would be enough to assuage McCain. Obviously, he was wrong about that. But I think that NOTHING would have assuaged McCain. He was pissed about the way the bill was crafted, he wants the Senate to go back to regular order, and this was his chance to forcefully make that point to the Majority Leader in a way that really counted.
I do find it interesting that the “skinny repeal” would probably have gotten the votes of Murkowski and Collins if they had simply removed the defunding of Planned Parenthood. But, of course, then there would be more defections from the conservatives, so that was a non-starter. In essence, the conservatives were willing to screw over the repeal if the cost of repeal was allowing Planned Parenthood to retain funding. Just in case someone is confused about the real priorities here. :dubious:
What? “Small bits of cheer”? 
I don’t understand why a dying McCain had to fly 2000 miles to accomplish what he could have accomplished by staying home.
Now the Dems can campaign against people like Portman and Flake by saying, “He voted to take away health care from 500,000/100,000 of you.” (Numbers make up.)
Reportedly, the Interior Secretary has threatened Murkowski with taking something away from Alaska. Great way to make friends in the state.
What?
Because he didn’t just want to accomplish it; he wanted to make a big dramatic statement about accomplishing it. If he had just stayed home, the message would have been “well of course we couldn’t pass it; McCain was at home dying, you can’t expect him to come all the way to Washington, can you?”. This way, though, McCain sends the message loud and clear “I’m still well enough to travel for things that are important, and since I came out here anyway I could very easily have voted yes, and I didn’t”.
EDIT:
Acsenray, given all the other votes as they stood, McCain voting no and McCain abstaining would have both had the same effect. If he votes yes, it’s 50-50 and Pence breaks the tie in favor of “yes”. If he abstains, it’s 50-49 no, there’s no tie, and Pence doesn’t vote. If he votes no, it’s 51-49 no.
I listened to Graham at the press conference and while he wasn’t being very direct I got the impression that he had been tipped off to possible shenanigans in the House - they were plotting to either sign it through ( possibly just to give Trump a win) or use the threat of signing it to force the Senate to sign off on something really horrible.
And Ryan just got a big fat piece of pork from the White House, the Foxconn plant. So of course he would shove the bill through. Otherwise he would be disloyal.
I think there is a fact that the Republicans need to face. Yes, the winning candidate pledged to repeal ObamaCare. He also promised to enact legislation that would cover everybody at a fraction of the cost. This promise set him apart from the other candidates. THIS is what a large portion of his base voted for.
I didn’t actually watch the drama. (All the news I get, and everything I know, I get from reading the Dope.)
Did McCain really cast, literally, the third no vote? Aren’t the votes called in alphabetical order? If so, that would put McCain before Murkowski. Can someone give me a TL;DW (Too long, didn’t watch) here?