Sinema could learn from Montana's' Hatfield

Watching Arizona’s freshman Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema trying to figure out how to vote on President Biden’s budget plan reconciliation bill reminds me of a Montana situation almost 44 years ago with freshman Sen. Paul Hatfield. In both cases, there was an important upcoming vote in which every vote counted. Both Hatfield and Sinema had let themselves become essentially the final necessary vote, breaking a political rule to never let yourself be the final vote because of the disproportionate blame that could be laid at your doorstep.

In 1978, the issue facing Montana Sen. Hatfield was the...