Prospects are now looking good for President Obama's arms-control treaty with Russia, with at least 60 senators poised to vote in its favor this afternoon, vaulting it over a procedural blockade and setting it up for a final vote later this week.
Headlines Monday night and Tuesday morning indicated that a handful of GOP senators had offered their support, after weeks of uncertainty and objection from Republicans.
With GOP Sens. Judd Gregg (NH), George Voinovich (OH), Richard Lugar (IN), Olympia Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME), Bob Corker (TN), Scott Brown (MA), and Bob Bennett (UT), Democrats will have the 67 votes they need to ratify it.
If they do, it will cap off a highly productive lame-duck session in which Congress resolved nearly every issue placed on its to-do list by year-end expiration dates, automatic triggers, and political last chances.
And it will have done this just a month and a half removed from the rank partisanship of the November 2010 midterms, which left, churning in its wake, serious doubts over Washington's ability to agree on anything.
Since Thanksgiving, Congress has extended the expiring Bush tax cuts, extended expiring unemployment benefits, passed food safety legislation, prevented Medicare reimbursement rates from automatically dropping, repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and set Estate Tax rates to prevent a scheduled hike next year.
