But he might very well be a clever hack.
News came down this afternoon that Senator Conrad pledged to vote against "government-run healthcare." Both TPM and Firedoglake, for example, are reporting this as a pledge against the "public option."
I don't think it is.
If you look at the original reporting (you only get one click on the item before it asks you to register), he specifically says he won't vote for "government-run healthcare." Healthcare. Not health insurance. I took this to mean that he's pledged to vote against a single-payer bill -- not an optional public insurance plan.
This analysis is further backed up by the fact that at the end of the article, it mentions that Conrad pledged to vote against "mandatory end of life counseling." Well, that's not in any of the bills. He also pledged to vote against bills that finance abortions. Not in any of the bills, either.
In other words, Conrad made a series of pledges to vote against things that don't exist in order to satisfy the screeching wingnuttery.
Of course, this doesn't mean Conrad is suddenly a (closeted) public option fanatic. It just means that he's not prepared to rule out voting for a bill that contains such a plan. Besides, unless my civics are rusty, nine Democrats can entirely sit out the vote and it could still pass via reconciliation. And Conrad definitely hasn't pledged to vote with a Republican filibuster.
The real takeaway at this point is that it's very difficult to predict what this is going to look like next month or in October. But if you want some additional silver lining, remember that four out of five bills will have a public option included (the fifth will likely have a nonprofit co-op).