Last night The Hill reported a secret agreement to secure Lieberman's cloture vote on health care reform. Today TPM has Reid's office denying it:

Reid spokesman Jim Manley told us: "There is no such understanding. We hope to have his vote in the end but we are not there yet."

A leadership aide also told us: "Senator Reid is speaking with Senator Lieberman and all members of his Caucus. To say that there is some 'understanding' about votes at the end of the process is preposterous."

I wouldn't put too much weight in the denial. Even if some secret agreement does exist, the caucus will deny it so Lieberman can enjoy his side of the deal: temporary (pretend) relevance.

Because if there really is an agreement and leadership confirmed it, reporters would stop flocking to Joe.

And then he'd be sad.

Besides providing a fresh articulation of pratically every form of spin I debunked yesterday, Chuck Todd's appearance on Morning Joe today provided us with this bomb, paraphrasing the White House's attitude towards Reid:

"You're the vote counter. But don't come crying to us when you need that last vote,"

Oh boy. My head hopes Todd was just trying to stir the pot, but my gut wonders...

Here's the full Todd clip (via TPM)

As predicted, there's a singular line of bogus spin coming from pundits post-announcement that manifests itself as of the following arguments:

• 'Reid isn't sure if he'll get 60 cloture votes for an opt-out plan (he's rolling the dice!); but even if he doesn't, he can just substitute a trigger plan and plausibly tell liberals that, well, he tried his best.'
  

• 'Today's announcement and last week's stories were just theater designed to mollify the liberal wing of the party - Reid doesn't really favor an opt-out plan.'
  

• 'The public option, like a lengthy Trey Anastasio guitar solo, is liked only by dirty hippies (bearded and otherwise).'

First, it should be obvious by now that the majority of Americans support a public option in health care reform. The constituency for a trigger plan is limited to Olympia Snowe and the hosts and guests of Morning Joe (both literally and figuratively).

Second, while people have said many bad things about Harry Reid, I'm pretty sure no one's ever accused him of being a legislative show horse. Or dramatic. He's just not going to announce a base bill that he doesn't reasonably expect will win 60 cloture votes. Can you imagine what a huge defeat that would look like? Reid can too.

Lastly, Reid definitively stated that a trigger bill wouldn't get a CBO score - effectively taking it off the table as a legislative option. If you see someone float a hypothetical Senate whip count for a trigger plan, ignore it - it's bogus.

It'll be on TV - I imagine all the cable news networks will carry it.

There's been a lot of back and forth over the weekend about whether the White House supports Reid's charge for a public option in the Senate base bill. At this point, the kabuki's probably too thick to decipher.

But at 3:15ET, if Senator Reid announces an opt-out public option in his base bill (and I expect he will), it won't matter what the White House preferred last week: everyone will have to get on board with the announced plan and work together.

And as Ezra notes, even if all 60 Dem Senators haven't committed to cloture, the announcement will force their objections out into the open:

Rather than killing the proposal in a back room, moderates who won't vote for cloture will actually have to vote against cloture. That makes them a target in their next election, and ensures a lot of harassment from the left. Reid is, in other words, making it harder -- not impossible, but harder -- for them to oppose the public option. Procedurally, it's a big win for public option advocates.

More work to do, but this will be a big step.

Update [2009-10-26 14:46:28 by Josh Orton]: One more thought: after the press conference, I'll be very wary of any spin that dismisses Reid's move as theatrics designed to mollify his base...it's bs intended to undercut the merits of the public option. In other words: the Village thinks the public option is simply a pet issue of the left, and hence any politician that embraces the policy is just appeasing the left. Bunk.

Update [2009-10-26 14:53:16 by Josh Orton]: This is exactly the type of public-option-undermining spin I'm talking about:

...by making a very public push for the opt out right now, Reid can avoid blame later if it ultimately falls short and if the Senate ultimately goes with the trigger. He can point out — rightly — that he threw his weight and prestige behind the opt-out first. Just sayin’.

Update [2009-10-26 15:34:18 by Josh Orton]: And opt-out it is. Reid says he's not even asking the CBO to score the trigger plan. Best quote from the presser:

"We always look for Republicans. It's just a little hard to find them...I can count the moderate Republicans on two fingers."

It's getting hard to tell. On the one hand, Valerie Jarrett says Obama backs the public option.

On the other hand, I've been hearing a lot more stories like this:

Multiple sources tell TPMDC that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is very close to rounding up 60 members in support of a public option with an opt out clause, and are continuing to push skeptical members. But they also say that the White House is pushing back against the idea, in a bid to retain the support of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

"They're skeptical of opt out and are generally deferential to the Snowe strategy that involves the trigger," said one source close to negotiations between the Senate and the White House. "they're certainly not calming moderate's concerns on opt out."

The choice now rests with the White House: if they want a public option in the merged Senate bill, they need to back Reid and tell a couple waving Dems to vote for cloture even if they don't support the final bill (which will only need 50 votes post-cloture). Otherwise, the bill will have Snowe's flawed trigger...and one single Republican vote (bipartisan!).

Beutler gets the scoop, and it's not a huge shock:

In a huddle with reporters moments ago, I asked Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) for her thoughts on a public option compromise that would allow states to opt out of a national government insurance program, and her answer could slow down the proposal's considerable momentum.

"I don't support that," Snowe said.

Asked further whether she would participate in a filibuster on a bill with a public option, she went almost all the way.

"I've said, I'm against a public option...yes...it would be difficult" to support allowing the bill to proceed to a vote.

I read this as a reasonably clear promise to filibuster a bill that contains an opt-out public option (and just as reports tell us that Reid is leaning toward just that provision).

Whether Snowe's objection will dilute the bill is up to the White House. How much do they care about token Republican support?

Pressuring Democratic leaders to create the strongest health care bill possible? Great.

But when the PCCC's pushes a meme that our Senate leader is "weak," does that increase or decrease Harry Reid's leverage with Senate moderates?

Here's the story the PCCC pushed to The Politico:

Poll: Most Nevadans think Reid is "weak"

More than half of likely Nevada voters think Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a "weak" leader -- with 84 percent of Reid's Democratic base supporting a public option for health care reform, according to a new poll sponsored by a progressive group running Reid ads in the state.

The Progressive Change Committee Campaign -- which is airing a pro-public option "Is Harry Reid Strong Enough" TV spot in Nevada today -- paid for the survey.

The poll, which found Reid trailing both of his possible GOP challengers by single digits, was conducted by Research 2000, the same company that polls for the Reno Gazette and Daily Kos. R2000 used person-to-person interviewers with a statewide sample size of 600 voters. The results have a 4 percent margin of error.

When voters were asked "Do you think Harry Reid is a strong leader or a weak leader?", 52 percent said Reid was "weak."

Don't get me wrong: I think it's smart and helpful to poll the public option's popularity in Democratic states, and then use that data to push hard on Dem leadership. We've seen how that strategy gets results by drawing a clear line between political pressure and a health-care-related outcome. But since that's not the message the PCCC is leading with, I'm unclear about how calling our Senate leader "weak" in the Politico is anything but preemptive back-stabbing.

Uh, excuse me?

On MSNBC this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell asked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) about a MoveOn-organized protest outside his Salt Lake City office, where protesters criticized Hatch for allegedly being beholden to the insurance industry because it donated a lot of money to his past campaigns.
...
"MoveOn.org is a scurrilous organization," he said. "It's funded by George Soros. He's about as left wing as you can find in this country. And they're up to just one thing, and that is to smear good people. And frankly, they're not gonna smear me without getting kicked in the teeth by me."

Yikes.

Hatch's reaction reveals how sensitive some members of the Senate are to criticism - heaven forbid some of the nearly 23,000 MoveOn members who count themselves as Hatch's constituents might peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights.

And such a violent threat from the same man who wrote loving songs about his friend Ted Kennedy.