1. The payroll tax narrative has been dogging the GOP. It would benefit them to put it to rest, not revisit it in two months. Part of the Dems' strategy was to force the initial vote, now the senate has voted with 89 'yeas' to force congress to do it all over again. This will essentially be a redux of the very display that has helped isolate the GOP as the brinksmen and obstructionists in a historically unpopular congress. As it turns out, the party of tax cuts is not equal-opportunity, and if anybody missed that this time around, they'll have another chance to tune in.
2. President Obama is eventually going to say 'no' to the Keystone XL pipeline. If he had just come out and said it without first appearing to weigh the costs vs benefits, the decision would have seemed rash and political… but the GOP has has done that job for him; he will now will have no choice but to come out and say (through a surrogate, of course) "due to time constraints, we will be unable to adequately evaluate the environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline and are therefore unable to grant permits."
3. President Obama came before the press yesterday professing satisfaction with the senate bill — it's only right that he should be deeply satisfied for the reasons mentioned above, and Speaker Boehner, who now has to either eat this bill or risk making his party seem factious at best and obstructionist at worst, knows this. Good job, Mitch McConnell.
