Word is Senate Majority Leader is short of the 60 votes he needs to pass ObamaCare through the Senate and getting shorter everyday that goes by with every new twist he puts together to placate Democratic holdouts—gain one, lose two.  President Obama is so concerned his former Senate colleagues are mishandling his effort to have the government takeover healthcare he has summoned all the Democrats and Independents to the White House to discuss strategy.

Odds are, the president will tell Harry Reid and his crew to do whatever it takes to get 60 votes—skinny this thing down and be content with the camel’s nose under the tent rather than insisting on dragging in the whole pregnant camel.  Were Ted Kennedy alive and in charge, the young president would not have to be lecturing the Democratic Leadership on how to pass a bill through the Senate.

RedState.com reports that Reid & Co. already got the message in fact and are ready to seal a deal, waiting perhaps only for the president’s imprimatur to be placed on it after today’s meeting.

The legislative process, therefore, is at a critical juncture, and the terrain underfoot is very treacherous for opponents of government-run healthcare. 

For more than a week, the Senate’s GOP Leadership was pounded for being complicit in allowing the Reid Bill to pass—by the Social Security Institute, the National Tax Limitation Committee (http://limittaxes.com) and Gun Owners of America (http://gunowners.org/), grass-roots groups such as Tea Party Support (https://teapartysupport.com/), talkers and bloggers from Rush Limbaugh to RedState.com (http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/12/12/fight/).  By week’s end, even the Chairman of the National Republican Committee, Michael Steele himself (http://socialsecurityinstitute.com/blog_post/show/386) was pounding on the Senate GOP Leadership to wake up and defend America against another giant step toward socialism.  Yesterday the mainstream Heritage Foundation found its voice in a mass email blast and in Human Events demanding that Senate Republicans come out of hiding and object, obstruct and fight by whatever means at their disposal to kill the Reid Bill and stop ObamaCare.  SSI, NTLC, Gun Owners of America and Tea Party Support sent a memo to the Health Care Freedom Coalition (a coalition of Washington groups and business associations against ObamaCare) calling upon coalition members to demand the Senate Republican Leadership use whatever parliamentary means available to kill the Reid Bill. 

Summing up Heritage’s disgust with what has been going on, Director of Senate Relations, Brian Darling said:

“Time for Niceness has Passed

“Finally, conservatives need to stop acting so nice during this debate. Last week, Majority Leader Harry Reid viciously accused Senate Republicans of displaying the same mindset as those who defended slavery.  It would be reasonable for a politician slandered in this way to shut down the Senate until Reid apologized. That didn’t happen. Republicans merely complained, then went on with business as usual.”

Senate Republicans are hearing the message, as our telephone calls and emails attest.  But are they GETTING the message?  Since Senate Republicans to this point have been saved only by the incompetence and greed of their Democratic opponents, it appears the Republican Leadership still has its head deep in the sand.  Until last week, it was fair to say a funk of defeatism infected the Senate Republican Caucus where the overwhelming number of Republicans believed passage of ObamaCare was inevitable.  Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reflected this view on Face The Nation when he told moderator Bob Schieffer “Republicans don’t have enough votes to prevent Democrats from doing whatever they want to do.”

After a week of being pounded for complicity and even collaboration with the Democrats, some Republican Senators now believe the Reid Bill may fail but not because of anything Republicans can do to kill it.  Rather, Republicans see a chance the Reid Bill may collapse of its own weight.  Thus, the main problem persists:  There is no evidence of Republicans taking positive action to object, obstruct and fight the Reid Bill by effective parliamentary maneuvering.  Instead, they still appear to hope for a Democratic mistake that will kill the bill so their fingerprints are not on the corpse.  Republicans still fear the “obstructionist” label, and thus remain inert. 

Unless Republicans become galvanized to actively obstruct the Reid Bill, our guess is Democrats will get their game together at last and push a skinnied-down version of ObamaCare through the Senate by year’s end.  What a shame that will be.  And, far from redounding to the electoral benefit of Republicans as the Senate GOP Leadership seems to calculate, it likely will result in conservative activists staying home from the polls in droves next November.