Trade highlights Democrats’ divorce from Obama …
The same liberal Democratic senators who stuck with the White House through six years of politically excruciating votes are set to break away in droves to oppose Obama's free trade efforts.
Their goal is to block a bill that greases the wheels for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an enormous 12-country trade deal that Obama wants -- badly -- to add to his legacy. And their open rebellion against their own party's president shows that lawmakers are viewing their own political fortunes as increasingly divorced from Obama's.
The internal rift will be forced into the open Tuesday when the Senate casts its first procedural votes on a bill called "trade promotion authority" -- or "fast track."
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It would allow Obama to submit trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote with no amendments. That's key, trade negotiators say, to getting other countries involved in the talks, like Japan, Australia, Canada and Mexico, to take their own political risks of signing off on a final agreement, knowing American lawmakers won't seek to re-open it later.
Both Republican and Democratic aides remain uncertain about the vote's outcome -- suggesting there's a real chance the Senate could fall short of the 60 votes necessary to begin debate on the trade bill.
If that happens, it won't mean the bill is dead. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could shelve it temporarily and bring it back up at a later date. But it would still be a worrisome sign for Obama, who often only seems able to bend Congress to his will when government shutdowns or debt ceiling breaches are at risk.
"At this point it's very questionable," whether 60 senators will vote to begin debate, said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois. "Most Democrats including those who are supporting fast track really want to know what they are voting for and so far Sen. McConnell has been very furtive in his strategy."
In public, Obama is at war with liberal firebrand Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who he said this weekend is "absolutely wrong" on the issue.
All the while, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner to replace Obama, has been caught in the middle, offering only tepid statements that allude to liberals' concerns without taking a stand for or against the deal.