52?! yes?

what happened!

wait what?

what is this thread's purpose????

I smell mota up in this room.

Mark Warner Opposes the dream act so we lost a vote.

He's referring to and asking why the vote tally of "Yea" for DREAM has been downgraded to 52 on the front page. If you read the News Forum, you'll see that Sen Warner (VA-D) was quoted in an article of not being in favor for DREAM. Of course this really isn't a lost vote, since his vote "Yea" was never guaranteed and was only (an educated) speculation in the first place.

So we were wrong (so what? no reason to cry or panic about it), let's get over it quickly and keep working. That being said, it also does NOT mean Warner isn't persuadable. Just look at McCaskill (MO-D) who previously voted "Nay" but has now cautiously said she'd possibly vote for DREAM in the next round. (This too, at best, is still speculation, not guaranteed for the most part) As for the other vote, I'm guessing offhand that Sen Begich (AK-D) was also downgraded to "on the fence" just for precaution, since much like Warner, his vote has yet to be tested, nor any concrete evidence on his position has surfaced.

What happened with the "two votes" is that we (myself included) just assumed optimistically, that since Warner and Begich replaced republicans (that previously voted against DREAM), we could squeeze in their votes as "possible Yeas" to even "Yeas." Warner and Begich are freshman Senators, so they weren't around to vote for DREAM last time, so their votes were NEVER ours in the first place. So essentially we haven't lost any votes. We've just gained more work to persuade a couple more Senators to side with us. (And also...CIR_DREAM2009, keep working at it, I value everything you've given us with the tally. Thanks for your hard work.)

BTW, some of the new and not so new members here need to get a grip on dealing with bad news. Just because the forecast is for some clouds, people automatically assume a hurricane / tsunami / volcano / earthquake all rolled into one is about to occur simultaneously. This battle has it's up and down. It's going to be a long summer of discontent if people keep reacting like an EMO kid in the pharmaceutical section left alone to Zolofot and Gillete razors. People shouldn't assume that the world is ending if a negative article is posted, and much the same, they shouldn't ease up from the throttle when a positive article is posted, as if we could coast away into victory.

Damn, instead of moving up, its going down. whats wrong with these politicians??

It'll go back up to 53 once Sen. elect Franken is seated. Don't forget the Likely Yes camp too, and they're not included in the yes tally (they're in the category: others).