Friday, February 13, 2009

Memo to Cantor: Do defections matter?

As any good Whip is want to do, Eric Cantor's working his hardest to keep the faithful in line for Friday's vote, but unsure he can pull it off:

“I don’t talk about numbers and where our counts are. All I can tell you is we need to have knowledge of what’s in the bill.... It is a little bit difficult for us to come through, but we will."

So what's coming through? It's impossible to stop the bill, we know that... so coming through means a moral or symbolic victory?

"[I'm not looking for] any kind of moral victories or political victories. What I’m looking for is help for this economy and help for the families.”

This is when being Minority Whip is tough -- whips are often used in s&m. And there's an element of that here (though $ support for it was taken out of the stimulus' initial draft)