Since people seem to be taking this rather seriously, I thought I ought to look up Durenberger's actual remarks.

The interview took place on March 22 at 11 a.m. You can hear it by going to this page at Minnesota Public Radio and clicking "LISTEN." The relevant part begins at 7:00, that is, 7 minutes into a nearly 1-hour-long program. The transcription below is mine.

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Q. [GARY EICHTEN] "Is—there are no [House] Republicans who have voted for this bill, and presumably won't in the Senate either. Does that make any difference?"

A. [DAVE DURENBERGER] "You know—and we'll get into this during the course of this program—a lot of that bill was written with Republicans, particularly the Senate bill, which is the one that passed. That's—it is the result of a lot of work between Chuck Grassley, the Republican who used to be chair of the Finance Committee, and Max Baucus, who's the Democrat. Well, a lot of that content was put together by Republicans. A lot of Republicans are either denying it or ignoring it today, but the reality is, when you see the implementation of this bill, you're going to see, not only in the Senate bill, but you're going to see as you get the history from people like myself, of health-care policy, that Republicans have been as active in health-care reform policy and law(?) as Democrats, and both parties are reflected in that bill."

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Now, for all I know, what he said may be technically true. That's how spin works: You say something that is technically true (or too vague to be provably false), but totally misleading. There is a big difference between writing parts of a bill and voting for it, but that distinction may be too subtle for some voters.

In politics, there is also something called a "trial balloon." You have someone outside the government say something, and if it is well received, it might become a new official "talking point" of the party. If it is NOT well received, it has deniability—it's only HIS opinion; he doesn't speak for the party.

A lot depends on how popular the health bill will be in the long run, and how desperate the Republicans will be to rehabilitate their reputations.