As I told Rick Klein and David Chalian on TopLine yesterday, if you don’t think the endangered Freshmen and Sophomores in the House are driving the car right now, think again. Remember that magic number of 39 Democratic votes needed to join with the Republican for a majority? Well, that’s how many Freshmen and Sophomores were willing to ban together in the “oust Rangel” effort — rather than have the issue hung around their necks as a millstone in 2010:

Joe Crowley, an ally of Rangel who has also played a leadership role at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is leading the whip count efforts on Rangel, acting as a go-between between the vulnerable freshman and sophomore Democrats, on the one hand, and Rangel and Democratic leadership on the other.

They were willing to buck leadership to oust the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to keep their seats.

Think about that.

This morning, the Politico made news by reporting that someone at the White House had ordered Harry Reid to cut a deal with Joe Lieberman on health care. The White House denied the report. But since, then, two more reoprters have confirmed Politico’s account.

Circumventing conference can’t happen without the help of progressive members of the House. There are 83 members of the Progressive Caucus I believe.

It will present a whole host of interesting organizing opportunities that we haven’t seen before when rage in these communities allows us to put up reform challengers who will siphon off the strongest activist support over a health. Since those districts have no chance of ever going Republican, it would shake up the entire dynamic and pose the first real threat that many of these members have ever had.