Chris Bowers has been doing some pretty good analysis of my whip counts, freeing me up to focus on the votes. But he’s waded into that territory as well, highlighting two possible vote-flippers.

Of the two, Mike Doyle telling The Hill he’s likely a Yes sounds right. Doyle comes from a D+18 district in the Pittsburgh area. It never made sense for him to be a holdout. In my next whip count, I’ll probably put him squarely into the Yes category.

The Nick Rahall evidence is thinner. Rahall touted federal funding for a local health care non-profit yesterday. I don’t know whether that makes him a sure yes at all; lots of Congressmen tout local projects in their districts without changing their votes on national priorities (see Republicans, every project in the stimulus). Bowers says that HCAN isn’t targeting Rahall with their ads. Well, they’re not targeting a lot of people. They’re not targeting Chris Carney or Ann Kirkpatrick or Solomon Ortiz. That’s not determinative. Also, they sort of ARE targeting Rahall, by targeting fellow West Virginian Allan Mollohan. There could be spillover into Rahall’s district as well (although the West Virginia media markets are odd and fragmented and in some cases expensive, because they’re shared with big markets like DC and Pittsburgh). The NRCC lists Rahall as undecided but Mollohan as a yes. Targeting is a contributing factor, but not the only one.

So I see little to tell me that Rahall’s a yes at this point. I’ll need some more information than a press release touting a local project.

I also want to agree with Bowers on this:

…the 17 most important votes who are not leaning in one direction or the other are as follows:

5 undecided potential “No to Yes” votes
John Barrow, Travis Childers, Lincoln Davis, Jim Matheson, Harry Teague

3 undecided potential “Yes to No” votes that are “Stupak-curious”
Jerry Costello, Henry Cuellar, Brad Ellsworth

9 other undecided potential “Yes to No” votes
Chris Carney, Mike Doyle, Bill Foster, Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell, Solomon Ortiz, Earl Pomeroy, Nick Rahall; Zack Space

That’s true. And while you can make a case that all 9 of those Democrats will come home and vote Yes again, you can make just as compelling a case that all 5 of those who voted No the first time will do so again.

Which brings us back to the major roadblock that’s been in the way of House passage this whole time – the Stupak bloc. Those three – Costello, Cuellar and Ellsworth (along with Chris Carney, who I think I should have put in the Stupak bloc yesterday, but forgot) – hold the key to passage, in my view. This is why Steny Hoyer has to admit that they don’t have the votes yet, because it’s just that close.