That seemed to spell the end for the public option. Baucus, however, managed to get just one Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), to join with the Democrats in approving the legislation.
[...]
Then last week, new polls, one from the Washington Post and ABC News and the other from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, found clear majority support (57 percent) for a public option. The Post-ABC News poll showed that support had risen five percentage points since August. The new numbers emboldened public option supporters to press harder, even though the same polls continued to show the public divided over the overall shape of health care legislation.

The poll numbers caught me off-guard. While I support the public option, I'm well aware of how many people do not. Means a lot when you consider all of the school yard fights that went on in Town Hall meetings and the anti-communist tea parties throughout the nation. It's nice to see such a strong showing for the underdog, that doesn't happen often in American politics.