Rats Nervously Eye Lifeboats
By 
It’s so precious when Republican senators pretend they give a damn about their constituents:
With Congress set to return on Monday after a week’s recess, Republican lawmakers are increasingly aware that their seven-year promise to dismantle President Barack Obama’s largest policy achievement is deeply imperiled. Senator John Hoeven, Republican of North Dakota, signaled this week that he would not vote for the bill as written, following negative remarks from other senators with large poor and rural populations. That was the 10th defection.
Three other Republican senators, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and John Boozman of Arkansas, have withheld their support, although they have not declared their opposition, and others have largely remained silent.
To state the obvious, these aren’t lost votes for McConnell in any meaningful sense. If McConnell can round up the rest of the 50 votes after Heller and Collins get their golden tickets, there’s a 0% chance he wouldn’t get the votes of any of the senators named here.
What is significant about this is that it does reflect skepticism from the Republican conference about whether the 50 votes will be there. If the bill fails, senators can assert they never would have voted for BCRA. (And if McConnell can get 50 votes together for his shit-and-cyanide sandwich, no harm no foul — after all, holding out allowed you to secure that extra $500 in opioid treatment funding for your state.) But it’s a good sign — although a far from a dispositive one — that senators are making sure their lifejackets on.
If God willing this things goes down in flames, I wonder if McConnell will just refuse to bring it to the floor, or if he’ll let the Senate vote it down 65-35 or something to tell Ben Bradlee Paul Ryan “fuck you.”