(And there's the minor matter of getting past GOP filibuster and veto. But let's put that to one side too.)

If the pledge is to make any sense, it needs to be interpreted as one to pass legislation for the executive branch to negotiate prices.

Dingell has pointed up the crucial ambiguity in the pledge:

Representative John Dingell said that he will move to force the Bush administration to negotiate Medicare drug prices when he takes over in January as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Such a move, which may curb profits for drugmakers, would go beyond earlier efforts by Senate Democrats to allow the government to negotiate lower drug prices. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said last month that he would resist efforts by congressional Democrats to force him to negotiate volume discounts for drugs.

Dingell, 80, a Michigan Democrat, said the secretary must be required to negotiate, "not just permitted, because we have reason to think that if he's just permitted, nothing will happen.''

Now, you can't help feeling he has a point there!

Merely authorizing negotiations would make the process wholly dependent on the inclination of the prez in office.

(Now, of course, given that the current prez can veto, and almost certainly have the veto sustained, on any bill of the sort from the 110th, his inclination can cut the thing off at source.

So Dingell is clearly making a point of principle: laying the ground for a bill in the a Dem-trifecta 111th that would hopefully be effective in binding later regimes - repealing the law would probably be as difficult as enacting it.)

In contrast to the Dingell view, we have Maj Whip-to-be Durbin:

We're for Medicare being able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies in order to save money for seniors.

Which is pretty unambiguously a call for permissive rather than mandatory legislation.

Now, policy discussion amongst Dem MCs can't be a bad thing.

But one just wonders whether this is an issue on which dissent within the party emerged during the campaign, and was fudged in documents like New Direction.

The joys of being in the majority!