The party needed all of its members in town for the vote in order for it to pass, but Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was in South Korea for a conference, putting them a vote down. Leadership knew about his trip for weeks ahead of time.
“I don’t think anything went wrong. We just needed more votes,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “We weren’t sure how the votes would come down, but we knew there would be absences.”
“It was a win-win either way. If we won the vote, it was a good win like we won the Canada vote,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday.
Nothing went wrong except the most plainly important thing to go wrong. Further something that could have actually gone right if they just planned better around one of their members.
Losing is ok because the Republicans will get blamed… Except this very article where they actually had enough Republicans to get a win and they still boffed it. A rare opportunity for substantiative progress to prove that even as a minority party they can drive common sense legislation and they totally screwed up.
Recession and job losses are just politics to them. They won’t face existential risk to their livelihoods.