The vote was 65-31. Only six of those 65 senators are Republicans — actually, five, since Arlen Specter is no longer a Republican. Matthew Yglesias doesn’t see much hope for a “broad bipartisan coalition” for comprehensive health care reform in those numbers:
It seems to me that if you can only get 65 votes for what should be an uncontroversial HHS appointment, then the odds of a broad bipartisan coalition for big picture health care reform are not so good.
Two of the six Republicans who voted for Sebelius were the Senators from her home state of Kansas. That includes Sam Brownback who, last I checked, was more-or-less the leader of the anti-abortion movement in the Senate. Under the circumstances, it’s hard to know what more outreach and whatnot could have been done. But the prevailing spirit within the GOP is clearly that Obama is a very bad president and so they should vote “no” on his initiatives. Which is fine. But it means that if Obama wants to deliver on his campaign pledges, he needs to use every legal means at his disposal to just pass things over the objections of the minority that opposes him.
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