The answer to the big question surrounding Nancy Pelosi’s scheduling of the ObamaCare vote this weekend has been answered.  She didn’t schedule it for Saturday because she had the votes — and now Steny Hoyer has admitted as much this morning:

A House leader says Democrats haven’t yet lined up enough votes to pass their health care overhaul bill.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland says the vote that House Democrats had scheduled for Saturday could slip to Sunday or early next week.

Hoyer acknowledged to reporters Friday that Democratic leaders don’t yet have the 218 votes needed to pass President Barack Obama’s historic health overhaul initiative.

In other words, this was a Hail Nancy play.  She couldn’t afford to wait too long for the vote after dropping 2,000 pages on members last week, and having them see the results of the elections this week.  Pelosi and Hoyer thought that rushing a vote would allow them to bully recalcitrant moderates into support.

She chose … poorly.

What does this tell us?  Moderates have apparently balked at the pressure Pelosi has put on them to swallow the public option and a $1.8 trillion price tag.  Today’s unemployment numbers probably had something to do with that as well.  Robert Reich advised Democrats to stop their push on health-care overhauls and start worrying about job losses, or risk becoming an irrelevancy in the midterms (via Instapundit).  The moderates in Pelosi’s caucus probably came to that conclusion on Tuesday night.