Bipartisan gangs fail more often than not. Democrats who view the ECA effort skeptically argue that it isn’t worth Biden’s time to engage seriously until at least one key goal is reached: The gang includes 10 Republican senators who could then vote with all 50 members of the Democratic Caucus to overcome a filibuster. The Collins-Manchin gang is still one Republican short.

But there’s also lingering suspicion among CHUCK SCHUMER and Biden officials that the entire enterprise is a trap.

In this view, the obsession with bipartisanship that is shared by Biden and Manchin handed Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL his greatest weapon. As long as McConnell keeps breathing life into bipartisan alternatives, Manchin can be separated from the Democrats’ most partisan bills and Biden will be tempted to follow along. It worked with BIF, which was supposed to lead to BBB, but may have killed it instead. (When he was asked Monday which policies he “would want to prioritize” in the BBB plan Democrats spent a year on, Manchin basically shrugged: “I haven’t gotten there.”)