Where rubber hits road

As many as 60 Republicans may go over to the other side in the House debate on the resolution opposing "the surge." 

On the second day of a four-day showdown over the nonbinding resolution, Democrats looked on as Republican dissidents denounced what they called Bush's ill-conceived plan to put 21,500 more combat troops in the middle of a sectarian civil war. ...

One Republican lawmaker close to the leadership, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said GOP leaders have 50 to 60 Republicans on their watch list, with between 40 and 60 expected to break with the White House tomorrow. ...

The next hurdle for the Democrats will be the funding debate, or so Republicans hope.

Republicans think the funding debate will unite their party and expose deep fissures among the Democrats, some of whom want immediate action to deny funding to the war effort. But Democratic leaders have rallied around a strategy that would fully fund the president's $100 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but would limit his ability to use the money.

And this is no minor detail:

The Democrats also intend to shut down the military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib near Baghdad by denying them funds, and to bar funds that would be used to establish permanent military bases in Iraq.