Are Democrats In Disarray or Just Negotiating?

Matt Glassman: “The reason legislative politics are often so hard to decipher is because it’s very hard to tell the difference between true party disarray and the normal course of last-minute negotiations where most people are bluffing and someone will blink and the deal gets cut nothing to it.”

Jonathan Bernstein: “To negotiate successfully, the biggest weapon everyone has is the freedom to walk away and oppose the bill, so it’s rare for anyone to explicitly say that he or she will vote for whatever emerges from the bargaining rounds. Quite the opposite: There’s a strong incentive for everyone to act as if they’ll walk away if they don’t get their way. Members can take that too far, especially in negotiations within one political party; at the very least, party leaders would expect someone who is absolutely a “no” to make that clear early. But for the most part, all the players know what the game is and expect this kind of scramble.”