Did all the phone calls/faxes change anyone's vote?

[tyedyeto]

Just wondering if jamming phones, filling voicemails and inboxes make even one Senator change his/her vote. Or did they feel harassed and it made them dig in and be more determined not to be swayed?

[Mass]

1. At the very least Biden and Feinstein.

[tyedyeto]

6. Did they say publicly that it was the people who convinced them?

Or was it other Senators who did it?

[cally]

14. Feinstein voting against cloture is amazing

She must have gotten many, many calls. She never seems to vote the wishes of her constituents. I'm amazed and proud of all of our efforts.

[chelsea0011]

2. Depends. Are Collins and Snowe on board with other Republicans?

[lastliberalintexas]

11. Yep, since they voted for cloture

They might vote against Alito today, when it doesn't matter, so that they can once again try to befuddle the voters of Maine into thinking that they are Not Like Bush. But they voted for cloture, so yes, they are on board with other republicans.


(and no offense intended to any Maine DUers)

[robcon]

3. I don't think there is any evidence for it.

I expected a lot more than 25 votes. What happened?

[connecticut yankee]

4. They wimped out.

[robcon]

5. Didn't we have 37 votes?

All of them wimped out????

[LynneSin]

12. I don't think they 'wimped' out

I think after Reid, Kennedy & Kerry realized their backs were against the wall and didn't have the filibuster they just let people vote as they wanted. Some of those 19 senators up are up for tight re-election battles and it served no purpose for them to support the filibuster if they didn't have the numbers.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Didn't Kennedy and Kerry start out virtually alone? I think we...

brought our Senators in blue states on board. We are, it seems, two countries, electorally.

[seabeyond]

8. welll, ya.......the call got kerry alone motivated

was the first step. and every vote beyond. so a huge 25 yaaaaa

[drm604]

9. This is an important question.

And we need to determine the answer if we can. I'm pretty sure that it does work at least sometimes, otherwise why has the right been doing it for years? The question is, did it work for us this time? If it didn't, what did we do wrong and what should we do differently in the future? I wonder if there is some kind of right wing manual or handbook floating around that we could get access to?

[tyedyeto]

10. I'm leaning toward the idea that any Senator who was persuaded

to change their cloture vote, did so, not because of an outcry by the people they serve, but by deals made in the halls of Congress. I guess today I'm being pessimistic about the Democratic process that we call our goverment. But tomorrow is another day and will be brighter.

[drm604]

13. Yes, but surely we started the process that led to those deals?

As far as I can tell no one (or at least no one with any clout) was seriously considering a filibuster attempt until we started in on them. I'm pretty sure that we had some effect, I'm just not sure how much. We need to determine just what effect we had and then figure out how to leverage that in the future.

What specific effect did we have and which specific actions caused that effect, and which actions were a waste of time?