quote, be sidelined the next time, you know. and i think that they would say, hey, look, we needed to get something done. and if mcconnell was only going to deal with biden, fine. mcconnell and biden can do that. i don't think that's the model going forward. i think reid feels as if, hey, i got 55 votes now. i don't have 53. i'm not a dwindling majority leader as some people thought i was going to be. dwindling a number of democrats and therefore not as much power. i don't think so. and don't forget, this isn't checkers at this point. the white house doesn't want to get harry reid too alienated or they'll never get their gun proposals going because harry reid is not excited about dealing with this gun issue in the senate. he'll do it if his arm's twisted, but they can't keep beating him up on other issues. >> david, it's heilmann here. i want to know from you -- i want to try to take us from the low and mundane and the meh-teh