Well it seems more and more the Dems have put themselves between a rock and hard place. They can either vote to impeach or not, both of which are a loose loose.
Lets take a look at voting for impeachment. In the beginning of this, the main focus was on whether or not Trump withheld aid for investigations on Biden. This would be especially bad if it were true, however, after the release of the transcript and the fact the Ukrainians were not aware of aid being withheld, this theory fell apart. Now the goal posts have shift and Biden is not even being talked about, even though Pelosi promised this would be a very focused investigation, to whether or not the Trump administration engaged in any kind of quid pro quo at all. First, countries do not work together out of the goodness of their hearts, but for some kind of benefit, or a quid pro quo, which is the point Mulvaney made, albeit in a clumsy fashion. So in this case, Trump asked for the Ukrainians to continue investigating 2016 election interference, and Trump considered withholding the aid to try and get it done. The problem here is two fold, first the Dems did the same thing to Ukraine in previous investigations. They required Ukraine to work with them in investigating 2016 election interference at the expense of withholding aid. Not only does this imply that the Dems feel investigating 2016 election interference is important, but that they are willing to use the same tactic that they are vilifying Trump for. And second, since the Ukrainians were not aware of aid being withheld, this is still not a real quid pro quo.
All things considered at this point, the case is very weak and would not pass if it made it to the Senate. This would only help Trump.
Second option is to not hold a vote and let the impeachment slowly fade away. Although this "may" help those Dems in weak districts, this still hurts the Dems overall. Not bringing a vote will certainly demoralize the progressive base and could effect voter turnout. On top of that, this whole process will end being another Mueller Report bust, further eroding public confidence of the House. This combined with lack of reasonable legislation getting passed will be a plus for the Republicans and Trump. It may not be as much of a plus as an actual vote, but still a plus.
Unless some bomb shell comes along that proves Trump engaged in a quid pro quo outside of the normal operations of diplomacy, such as only being concerned with Joe Biden, this whole thing will blow up in the Dems faces. One analogy I read recently was comparing buying some aspirin from a local pharmacy vs. buying some heroin from a drug dealer. Both are quid pro quos, but one is legal and the other is not. For all intents and purposes, it seeming more and more Trump engaged in the former, but the Dems are desperately trying to make it look like the latter.
As an aside, does anyone know if the new MacBooks have issues with the space bar? I keep on accidentally typing double spaces, and it getting to be quite annoying.
