I suppose the Democrats could view Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski as their own little two-point conversion, tying up the score at the end and sending the game into overtime. But if that's what happens, the Betsy DeVos confirmation vote isn't going to turn out like the Super Bowl - except in this respect: The team being support by most of the Trump-haters (with apologies to my colleagues in the Atlanta office) is going to lose again.
Either way, we won't be waiting much longer to find out. Here's where you can see it live:
We won't know for sure until the vote, but logically it seems unlikely Mitch McConnell would have scheduled a floor vote if he had any doubt about having the 50 votes he would need to produce a tie and allow Vice President Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote.
Chances of Pence being on hand for the vote: 100 percent.
Never forget: Opposition to Betsy DeVos is all about the political power and influence of teachers' unions. Every Democrat politician bows at the altar of the teachers' unions to secure enough cash to operate campaigns, and as the boss told us on Sunday, Collins and Murkowski accept a lot of money from them as well.
It is not the job of the Secretary of Education to "support public schools" per se. The job is to ensure that people who need a good education can get it. If the institutions who are supposed to provide that good education are failing, then they don't need Washington's "support." They need a smack upside the head.
I would prefer that the Department of Education not even exist. Education is a function of state and local governments and there is no need for the federal governmenet to have a role in it at all. But since it does exist, we might as well have a Secretary whose priority is the needs of the students and their families, not the agenda of educators. Hopefully no more Republicans beyond Collins and Murkowski believe otherwise, and in about a half-hour the vice president is breaking a tie in favor of that very principle.
Dan's new novel, BACKSTOP, is a story of spiritual warfare and baseball.Download it from Amazon here
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