I know that this is a completely moot point at this point, but I’ll humor myself over it anyway.
I wonder what impact, if any, on the primary race the FISA vote would have had if it had been held in, say, December of ‘07 or January of this year as opposed to now, and Obama had voted for it then.
Setting aside the fact that, being in primary mode and trying to vacuum up as much of the base as he could, there is no way Obama would have voted for the bill at the time, I wonder if it would have had any impact. A 5 or 10% swing towards Clinton on Super Tuesday could have ultimately been enough to swing the primary her way. There may have been enough base democrats who would have said “you know, I don’t like Clinton, but at least she’ll vote against FISA” and would have voted for her…or at least for Edwards (he may have been the real winner out of it).
Then again, maybe no one except bloggers really care about FISA and it wouldn’t have any impact at all. You don’t exactly see “domestic spying” very high on the list of issues that people find important, anyway.
By the way, has anyone asked Obama yet whether he would, if elected President, actually use the powers he just voted for. It’s an interesting question.
As I’ve noted before, there is a justification for voting for this bill, even if you’re completely against it, just because a possible, if not likely, alternative was even worse (i.e. an even worse bill becoming law). As unsavory as it is, if someone votes based on pragmatism, it makes sense to vote in favor of a bad bill just so that a worse bill isn’t passed.
Of course, as President, Obama wouldn’t face such a predicament. He could just veto the bill or refuse to utilize it’s provisions (unlike what Bush does in refusing to follow parts of the law which tell him that he’s required to do something, there is nothing disallowing a President from refusing to use a law that merely gives him the authority to do something).
Also, in an added semi-non-germane note, kos always liked writing, before Obama made his statement on the recent FISA bill, that all Obama had to do was “give the word” and the entire democratic caucus would bow to him and vote against the bill (in a sense, if kos is going to be consistent in his argument, it is largely Obama’s fault that FISA passed. In reality, it was already destined to become law after it passed the House, no matter what Obama did). Obviously that isn’t the case as 27 of the Senate’s 49 democrats (that’s a majority, by the way) still voted against the bill.
Unless kos is going to try to argue that people would have not voted for the bill on this say but not vote for the bill on his say, and I would find such an argument quite suspect, it’s hard to argue that Obama is exactly the juggernaut of influence within the senate caucus, much less the party at large, that kos tried to argue he was. Yes, he’s the presumptive nominee, so he is in a sense the “leader” of the party, but you didn’t exactly see people bow down to Kerry during or after 2004 did you? If Obama loses, he’ll just be another democrat, and that’s why they’re not bowing to him yet. If he wins, then they’ll start bowing. It would aos presumably mean that congressional democrats won’t have to vote on any more crappy bills either.
