A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died in a Senate cliffhanger Tuesday, a single vote short of the support needed to send it to the states for ratification a week before Independence Day.

The 66-34 vote in favor of the amendment was one less than the two-thirds required....

--AP

So the Republicans finally scared up a problem to which their electoral success in November could conceivably be a solution -- "Just vote for one more of us and we can stop those filthy hippies who burn maybe five flags a decade!" (They were hoping for such an outcome with the gay-marriage vote, but they fell so far short of two thirds that I'm not sure it's even mathematically possible to elect enough Republican senators this year to rescue America from the gay barbarians.)

But Is this actually going to work? With everything that's going on right now, are there people for whom the deciding factor in casting their vote will be one hairy guy every two or three years burning a piece of cloth? Well, to point out the obvious, we've voted based on stupider things, and for higher office.