Card Check? Dead?

I got an email today from someone asking me if I thought Arlen Specter's decision on Card Check would have any effect on the decisions-in-waiting from our own Senators, Lincoln and Pryor.

Here's that response.

I'm not too surprised by this. Specter, despite his very centrist tendencies, is still a Republican. His biggest campaign will be the primaries that those in the further-Right of in Pennsylvania are beginning to mount. It wouldn't have made sense for him to vote for it, especially if he is going to stay a Republican, which he has avowed to do several times over.

As for Lincoln and Pryor, I think we'll get more of the same, and an eventual 'no.'

Lincoln has made up her mind to vote no for it. She'll likely get a pass from the party for it, because the writing is all over the wall: Her right-to-work state isn't for it. She's up for re-election. Such a vote would make her re-election more difficult. There it is.

The trick for her now — and my sources in Washington tell me is now her plan — is to do this in the most Union-friendly way possible, maybe a promise for union devotion afterward or something. I don't know. I think the national hubbub she received about it has helped to do some of the aforementioned wall writing. Or at least to do it in bolder letters.

Pryor is a bit more peculiar, to me, anyway, simply because he's not up for re-election, so he seemingly is a bit more insulated than Lincoln. He may pick up some party clout by sticking it to his right-to-work state and taking up for his party's agenda, because he knows it won't ultimately pass, and he may have time to rectify such an action with his state in the time it takes to run a campaign.

I still don't think he'll do it, though. It's still a pretty close vote, even with a certain Specter vote against. And, it'd be hard to raise money around the state for his eventual re-election campaign.

Of the two, I think Pryor would be more likely, but I don't think either will.