Good fences, good neighbors ... and Bob Menendez

Earlier today the US Senate voted by a margin of 83-16 to add hundres of miles of fencing along the border between the US and Mexico. No Republican voted against the amendment, and the overwhelming majority of Democrats voted for it.

The 15 Democrats who voted against it (as did Jim Jeffords of Vermont, the Republican-turned-Independent) were Daniel Akaka and Daniel K. Inouye, both of Hawaii; Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico; Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both of Washington; Christopher Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman, both of Connecticut; Richard J. Durbin and Barack Obama, both of Illinois; Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin; Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts; Frank R. Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, both of New Jersey; Jack Reed of Rhode Island, and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland.

So twice as many Democrats voted for this common-sense amendment as voted against it.

But Bob Menendez decided he'd rather be a minority within a minority.

Interesting.

Of the 15 Democrats who voted against this common sense proposal, only Akaka, Bingaman, Cantwell, Lieberman, Feingold, and Menendez are in cycle, running for reelection in November.

Bob Menendez, appointed to his seat in the US Senate in January upon the inauguration of former-Senator/current NJ Governor Jon Corzine, is widely viewed by the DC political establishment as one of the two most vulnerable Democratic incumbent running for reelection in 2006 (the other being Maria Cantwell of Washington).

Does Menendez know something we don't?