Senate Finance Committee "Gang of Six" fun facts:

Who-----------------State--------------Population

Max Baucus----------Montana------------967,440

Kent Conrad---------North Dakota--------641,481

Jeff Bingaman--------New Mexico----------1,984,356

Chuck Grassley-------Iowa----------------3,002,555

Mike Enzi------------Wyoming-------------532,668

Olympia Snowe-------Maine--------------1,316,456


Those Senators represent 8,444,956 people out of a total of 304,059,724 for the nation. That's 2.7%. And they're all rural.

If each Senator represented a hypothetical state that contained 1/50th of the U.S. population (6,081,194.48) then collectively, the six would represent 12% of the nation.

That's not particularly inspiring (a larger "Gang" would be better), but it's a whole lot better than 2.7%. The Senate might just as well be a House of Lords, full of individuals with whatever quirks they happen to have. Some liberal, others conservative. But it's one thing for sure: not very representative of the population.

Several of them are lifers, too. Year of first term: 1978, 1987, 1983, 1981, 1997, 1995.

The Senate is structured to systematically thwart the will of the majority of the people, and is shredding at present any claim by the United States to be a functioning democracy.

It's given the appearance of being more democratic, but it isn't.

All red staters and blue dogs.

Conrad already strongly opposes a public option.

Wow, so that is at least 5-1 agaisnt public option. Whereas some polls have over 60% of the American public in favor fo it.