Neither Rand Paul nor Ted Cruz were going to break with the party on the eve of the GOP's assumption of the senate majority, knowing that in a year or so they're going to be on a stage debating other Republicans in front of the GOP base.

In fact: the more "grassroots-friendly" this bill had been, the less tenable a yea vote would have been, particularly for Paul.

Paul said it didn't go far enough and had some problems. Cruz has proven he doesn't care what the old guard think.

Cruz did break with the party.

D'oh. Thanks for the correction.

Because, like Paul, he has the luxury to. If he ever held the tie-breaking vote he sure as hell would vote lockstep with the GOP. These people are "show libertarians," at best.

What would convince you of that fact, or convince you of the contrary?

Nope. Paul refused to support the bill because of the provisions for the continuance of the Patriot Act into 2017. He's been quite consistent on this, and it really doesn't have anything to do with Senate majorities. I applaud his stand.

Which ones?

I apologize, I haven't found my issue list but:

The following Republican Senators Elect are currently US House Reps and voted:

  Yea    Tom Cotton
  Nay    Cory Gardner
  Yea    Bill Cassidy (assuming win in run off)
  Nay    Steve Daines
  Yea    Shelley Wellons Moore Capito

Joni Ernst, Thom Tillis, Mike Rounds are the unknowns.

The new R's are going to do what they're told, just like Paul and Cruz did what they were told in this vote, as well: as stars of the Republican party, they were allowed to vote for cloture and deflect attacks on them in a year when the race for President heats up. And, they were allowed to do this because the leadership knew they already had the votes to block the bill.

The party of keep-the-government-out-of-my-healthcare would very much like to keep it in absolutely everything else you do.

These are not your Goldwater Republicans.

I'm not sure why you think I'm suggesting they are? My only point is that, had the blocking of the bill depended on Paul and Cruz voting against cloture, they would have voted against cloture. Since it didn't, they were allowed to vote for cloture, and appear to be friendly to privacy/whatever, since both of them think they might be President someday.

It's why a lot of votes in both houses can seem close, or bipartisan, but in fact they are not - just Congressmen who are owed a favor being allowed to vote in such a way that won't piss off their constituents or hurt their chances of being elected to a higher office someday, or land them a sweet consulting gig after they leave office, or whatever. If the leadership knows they have votes to spare anyway. This is a pretty common and well-known practice I thought, so I don't really understand the downvotes.

I mean, if both Cruz and Paul had voted for cloture and the Senate had moved on cloture with e.g. 61 votes or something (i.e. both their votes actually mattered and were against the party interests), then their votes would be big news and evidence of an actual schism. As it stands, how they voted doesn't mean shit, other than that they are reasonably famous politicians.