Senate Coalition Prevents Different Median Vote

By filibustering to refuse the bringing if separate pro-escalation and anti-escalation bills to the Senate floor, Republican senators siding with Bush have maintained the distance between the status quo and the bill that has come closest to passing but still failed. This is a wise move on the pro-Bush senators’ part because they know that a division of the issue into separate bills each reflecting the opposite side of the issue would force a more definitive dichotomy in which the anti-escalation bill would have a better chance of passing due to being closer to the status quo of maintaining troop concentrations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given President Bush’s proposal for at least 21,500 additional troops to be deployed, the pro-Bush senators’ position is farther away from the status quo and hence must be packaged into the same bill as checks on escalation, resulting in a more moderate bill that still advances the escalation agenda if passed. Of potential significance is the Senate scheduling its vote on a bill analogous to the House bill on the issue for this Saturday, as depending on which senators can and cannot make it to the meeting, the veto pivot might be skewed more towards the pro-escalation or anti-escalation side than what has been the case in recent Senate votes.