Democrats voting "yes" on Owen Cloture motion

Jason Smith is looking at the cloture "no" votes on the Owen nomination and rightly notes that "it's not surprising to see which Senators wanted to keep obstructionism alive and abuse the system for the benefit of a small fringe group of radical Leftists".

But the group that I think is interesting is the Democrat "Yes" voters.

Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Carper (D-DE)
Clinton (D-NY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Leahy (D-VT)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Obama (D-IL)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Schumer (D-NY)
Wyden (D-OR)

These people have all voted against cloture repeatedly*. What's changed? How does the "deal" affect their position?

Well, obviously, Byrd, Landreiu, Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Pryor and Salazar had to change their votes because they were signatories to the "deal". But what about the rest of them?

If they were taking a principled position that cloture shouldn't be invoked on the Owen nomination because there was more debate that needed to be done, they should still be voting "no", shouldn't they? Owen hasn't changed, her positions haven't changed. The only thing that's changed is that some of their colleagues have agreed to vote "yes" on cloture. Why is Hillary Clinton voting "yes"? Pat Leahy? Chuck Schumer? Dick Durbin? Are they trying to pretend that they aren't and haven't been exercising pure political obstruction?

There's absolutely no principled reason for a "yes" vote from any of these people. I have more respect (on this issue anyway) for the "principled obstructionists" than the "vote-with-the-winning-team" spineless wonders.




* - I'm not certain that's the case with Salazar, or either Nelson.