If the Senate support for the (A) immigration bill was really tight with the 60 votes needed, there would be no need for Ted Kennedy and other supporters to flood the Sunday talk shows.

“Backers of US immigration reform vowed Sunday to hustle deeply divisive legislation through the Senate this week to document 12 million illegal aliens while beefing up border security.
But virulent opponents stepped up attacks on what one critic called a foreign “invasion” of the United States, despite a new bid by President George W. Bush to cement support for the centerpiece of his domestic agenda.

After the immigration bill collapsed a fortnight ago, the Senate is set to vote Tuesday on whether to allow debate to proceed on revised legislation that emphasizes tighter borders and law enforcement.

“I believe we will pass the bill, and I think we have good support among the Republican Party,” Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy said on ABC television.

“And the reason we’re going to pass this bill is because it’s tough, fair and practical,” he said.

In his weekly radio address Saturday, Bush revealed that under the revised Senate bill, people slipping into the United States illegally will not only be deported, but never allowed to enter the country again.”

Kennedy and his bravado simply shows that they in fact do not have the votes necessary. Senator Jeff Sessions whom Bush just did some fund raising for just last week doesn’t see the votes being there either.

“Republican Senator Jeff Sessions took issue with Kennedy’s confidence that the latest immigration bill would carry the 60 votes it needs in the 100-seat upper chamber to overcome blocking tactics by its critics.

Top Democrats in the House of Representatives have also warned that Bush must cajole up to 70 Republicans to back the deal in the lower house, as it is likely to be spurned by Democratic lawmakers from conservative districts.

Senate opponents are “going to use every effort to slow this process down and continue to hold up the bill,” Sessions said on ABC.

“It will not work. We will be on the verge of giving an amnesty for 12 million people, but not getting a legal system in the future that will work, and that’s the difficulty there.”

Most observers believe that if the bill fails to make it through Congress this year, it will be dead, as it will get caught up in the political maelstrom of next year’s presidential election.”

We’ll see Tuesday, but Monday opponents of the bill are planning even more ramped up blitzing of Senator’s phones and faxes and emails.