Bloodless Coup

36 Senators Vote to Defund Political Science

So the Senate voted on Tom Coburn's (R-OK) amendment meant to defund National Science Foundation grants for political science. It was a largely party line vote, 62-36 (Byrd and Landrieu didn't vote). However a few senators bucked their party. 9 Republicans voted for political science and against Coburn - Burr, Cornyn, Snowe, Collins, Cochran, Alexander, Bond, Johanns, and Gregg. 5 Democrats sided with Coburn and against the political scientists - McCaskill, Nelson of Nebraska, Baucus, Webb (what?) and Bayh, who really needs to run for president again because since he stopped doing that his performance in the Senate has been notably disappointing. Yes, that means that for some reason the votes coming from the state of Missouri and Nebraska were the opposite of what one would expect based on party.