After the hearing ended last night Senator Lamar Alexander came out and announced he was voting against additional witnesses. So now I get how the wavering senators will claim they should be reelected. Here goes:
Today (after much more noise) the vote on calling more witnesses will happen. All the Democrats along with Collins, Romney and maybe Murkowski will vote yes for more witnesses.
If it ends up 50-50 then Justice Roberts will refuse to cast the deciding vote and say he will follow the rules of the senate. A measure not passed is not approved. Thus 50-50 is a loss for more witnesses.
Okay, then comes the second vote to remove from office. Here’s where the trickery will come I think.
Collins, Romney and some Democrats like Jones and Manchin will vote not to impeach and remove from office.
In this way the Democrats like Jones and Manchin can try and have it both ways.
They will tell Democrats I voted to get the witnesses to hear the evidence, but we didn’t win. They will tell the others they did not vote to impeach the President because the evidence wasn’t there.
It will be an example of politics at its worst and an example of how dumb they think people are.
Joe Manchin has walked this line for a long time. A Democrat in red state West Virginia, he has proven deft at this. Remember Justice Kavanaugh’s hearing? He was “studying and reflecting” and wouldn’t commit. He waited and waited. Only after Senator Collins speech announcing she was voting for Kavanaugh did he run and say he was too. He wants to be able to tell West Virigians he is supporting the President. But, he won’t do it until he is not the one who’s there when he is really needed. A real profile in courage.
So if I have this right, the vote for witnesses is a no even if it goes 50-50.
Then the vote to remove from office fails something like 54-46.
We went through all this for that.
One last point on Senator Alexander. He said in announcing he was a no vote on witnesses that he believes the President did withhold the funds for a while. He said he thought that was wrong, but not impeachable. Our position exactly all along.
How much time, pain, division and costs we could have saved if only they would have voted to censure. A reprimand was all this wa,s and it turned into a circus.
Remember your vote in November makes a difference.