Cocaine Mitch is riding the range again. We’re preparing for a Senate vote today on the Green New Deal, but there’s a significant glitch in the program. The party of the members who crafted the bill in both chambers is planning on blocking the proceedings. Can we all just agree that this is getting a bit… awkward? (CNN)

The Senate will vote Tuesday to take up the Green New Deal, the progressives’ prescription to battle climate change, but it is expected to be blocked by Democrats, who support many of the ideas in the plan but believe Republicans are trying to score political points by forcing a quick vote on the nascent proposal. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has made clear he is pushing the vote to put Democrats — especially the many in the Senate who are running for president — on the record regarding the controversial plan written by liberal Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, which Republicans argue is a socialist manifesto that will destroy the economy. “I could not be more glad that the American people will have the opportunity to learn precisely where each one of their senators stand on this radical, top-down, socialist makeover of the entire US economy,” McConnell said Monday.

McConnell was dropping the s-bomb (socialist) right and left in his remarks. This is clearly a rather pointed run at not just AOC in the House, but Bernie Sanders in the upper chamber. It’s also probably not lost on the Majority Leader that quite a few of his Senate colleagues from the minority are currently running for President or considering announcing their campaigns. Each one of them will be put on the spot to declare where they stand on “this socialist fantasy.” (As McConnell described it.)

The numbers for this steaming pile of garbage are so astronomical that any voter even glancing at them would run for the hills. But this is what many of them ran on during the midterms, at least in the broad strokes. So what do the Democrats plan to do? Most of them are going to vote “present.” Since 60 votes would be required to move it forward and no Republicans will be voting for it (except McConnel, I suppose), that means it’s dead in the water.

But does a “present” vote really get them off the hook? Not really. You either support the measure or you don’t. If you’re in the chamber and have the chance to try to move it forward, you vote yes. Doing anything else means you don’t support it. That means the presidential candidates and other Green New Deal cheerleaders will have a choice to make. Stand behind what they said on the campaign trail or throw Ed Markey (and AOC by implication) under the bus.

So we’re probably about to watch the Democrats defeat a measure they accused Republicans of not supporting all through last year. You might want to fire up a batch of popcorn and turn on CSPAN this afternoon. You don’t often find this type of quality entertainment on television anymore.