It's still early to read too much into it, but the fact that not one Republican member of the House voted for the massive, bloated spend-a-thon which is posing as a "stimulus" bill might mean the Democrats have, in their first 10 days of full control, already over-reached.

It will be interesting to see whether there is newly-found spine among GOP Senators like Mitch McConnell...and especially interesting if the GOP were to be able to hold together a filibuster should a bill similar to the current proposal be brought forward.

My guess, however, is that liberal Republicans like John McCain and both Senators from Maine would side with the Democrats in that case, and they will work in the deadly spirit of "bipartisanship" to pass a bill which jams one knife into the heart of America rather than two. You get my point regarding the relative difference of effect on the nation.

It's probably too far from the next election for the current debate to be important in terms of an election issue...unless the GOP shows a clear opposition to the bailout in the Senate to match or nearly match the house and then the economy doesn't recover within 2 years. I believe the economy won't recover in any important way within 2 years...and I believe it certainly won't if this "stimulus" passes, because the only thing it stimulates is the national debt.

I don't want to get too optimistic that the Democrats and Barack Obama will waste a tremendous amount of political capital within their first few weeks in power. But it's certainly not out of the question at this point, and it's nice to dream.

One thing we need is for everyone who is represented by a Republican in the House to contact him or her and thank that person for his "no" vote. Even better, everyone who is represented by a Republican should send his campaign fund $10 with a note saying it's specifically in appreciation of defending the taxpayer.

Maybe that's easy for me to say because I'm represented by a Democratic congressman and, can it be true?, two Democratic Senators. Yeech.