This is why I will never, ever vote for Obama

Jonathan Cohn, at The Plank:

All through the summer, members of Ted Kennedy’s committee staff in Washington have been feverishly preparing for an all-out effort to enact universal health care next year.

It would be one thing if there was a GOP House, or a GOP Senate, or even a GOP Senate that could possibly maintain a filibuster. But we won’t have any of those things come 2009. The GOP is going to lose a couple more Senate seats, putting the Dems far too close to 60 votes for comfort. If Obama is elected, we’re looking at 1993 redux–with a Democratic House, Senate, and president–but one in which the GOP leadership isn’t nearly as clever or united as it was back then. If you haven’t read “The System,” Haynes Johnson and David Broder’s seminal look at the health care fight of Clinton’s first term, you really should. I still have the copy I was assigned to read in high school; it’s a masterful look at the secret (and not-so-secret) struggles on Capitol Hill and in the White House in the wake of Bill Clinton’s election.

There’s no Bob Dole figure in the picture now, and there’s no Newt Gingrich. What there is is a Democratic party willing to play hardball, and the dying wish of an elder statesmen. And I don’t know if that combo can be beaten.