I strangely recall someone telling me last year that we were going to have an end to “politics as usual” and issue in an age of transparency. Well, I think we have finally seen the transparency of politics as usual – much of it occurring over the past 24 hours. Like a poorly designed reality TV program coupled with a B-move drama, the Democrat-controlled Senate has shown us how difficult it is for 60 people living under one big tent to ever agree on one thing. By this, I am talking about their Health Care Reform proposal.

President Obama (an ex-Senator) called the 60 current Senators in the Democrat caucus to the White House to pressure them to come to an agreement on the Health Care Reform proposal and vote on it before Christmas. If you recall, Obama originally wanted this bill signed earlier in the Summer, and has then gradually allowed the deadline to slip from month to month until settling on the end of the year. The pressure is on, since campaigning for the 2010 Congressional elections will hit full steam in January, and the President is afraid that dragging this hot-topic issue into the campaign season will put sitting Democrats at risk of losing in the polls, compliments of an angry voting public.

It seemed to be coming together for the Democrats in November, when fence-sitter Mary Landrieu sold her vote for a $300 Million ‘bribe’ (though it is likely that the section of the bill directing this financial aid will probably be stripped from the legislation when the House and Senate combine their bills). Receiving enough votes on the procedural test to get the bill to the Senate floor, the Democrats felt that they were on track to moving the process forward to passing the bill and merging it with the House bill. And then they hit a roadblock by the name of Joe Lieberman.

Siding with the Republicans, Lieberman (former Democrat, now Independent) said he would support a filibuster against a bill that contains a public option. With estimates of the bill costing over $1 Trillion, the public option was tossed in favor of an ‘early buy-in’ for the Medicare. Lieberman, not being impressed, said he would vote against that option as well. This roadblock led to the meeting in the White House today as well as Obama making yet another public statement on how this must be passed.

A plan was formulated to drop the Medicare buy-in from the bill as well, just in order to get enough votes to pass some sort of legislation, to which Lieberman said he would support. This news was a welcomed sigh of relief in the White House, but that was short lived. A new roadblock arose by the name of Roland Burris. Burris, the Illinois Senator appointed to Obama’s vacant seat, has challenged the Senate leadership by saying he will not vote in favor of any legislation that does not contain a public option.

This rift has led to another ex-Senator Governor (close enough) to chime in on the debate. Former DNC Chairman and Presidential candidate Howard Dean came out calling for Harry Reid to “kill the Senate bill” and work using the House bill through the practice of reconciliation. This way, the Senate Democrats would only need 51 votes to pass the legislation and move the bill to Obama for passing.

Dean is probably correct, since any bill coming out of the current Senate debate will look vastly different than the bill that passed by just three votes in the House. Trying to merge the two bills together where both houses would vote in favor of it will be next to impossible. However, if the Democrat leadership go down the path of reconciliation in 2010, it will be instant fodder for the Republicans as well as Democrats against the public option to use against incumbent Democrats during the congressional campaigns.

So, the heat is on for the Democrats to pass something in the next 10 days. Failure to pass legislation in the Senate will all but mean the end of the debate on Health Care Reform until after the elections. Ironically, that might mean the Democrats would have a smaller control over the House and Senate, making it even more unlikely to have a bill with a public option reaching the President.

Aren’t you glad that there is more transparency?

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