The Democratic senator summed up the debate succinctly.

 “A vote for this package will be a vote for 20 million seniors; a vote against the package will be a vote against 20 million seniors,” Baucus said. “A vote for this package is a vote for 250,000 disabled veterans who also get rebate checks; a vote against this Finance Committee package will be a vote against 250,000 disabled vets who will not get the benefit of a rebate check.”

“Time and again, John E. Sununu has voted against extending unemployment benefits and against healthcare benefits for New Hampshire’s veterans,” said Bill Lofy, director of the Stop Sununu campaign of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. “His record on these two issues is long, consistent and abysmal.”

Echoing Republicans and the White House, as well as some House Democrats, Sununu warned that adding extraneous provisions to a bipartisan House-passed bill would delay a timely and targeted stimulus needed immediately for the slumping economy.

“By delaying passage and implementation, we make it much more difficult for anything we do to have a positive impact,” Sununu said.

Democrats say justifying a vote against the bill will be difficult, given the strong lobbying push launched by a slew of influential groups such as the AARP. In addition, they say they have new leverage after the government last week reported a drop of 17,000 jobs in January, the first workforce decline in four years.

But Republicans warn that attempting to jam through legislation will not be productive, especially in light of the public’s growing disapproval of the hardball tactics in the nation’s capital and the rock-bottom approval ratings of the Democratic Congress.

“We’ve got a bipartisan compromise, widely praised, that some on the left in the Senate seem willing to upset to try to make political points more than legislating,” a senior GOP aide said. “That’s not what people expect from us.”

National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Rebecca Fisher said it is “too soon to know how are voters falling in line with” the stimulus package.

Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, does not support the Finance Committee bill and doubted the bill would stimulate the economy, arguing that instead it would expand the deficit to well over $400 billion.

Kyl, who spent Monday whipping his members to kill the Finance Committee’s package, downplayed the political risks for Republicans seeking reelection.

“It’s not easy to get to be a U.S. senator, and if all you do is do things so you get to stay one, it ain’t worth it,” Kyl said. “You do what you think is right.”