The Republicans got the support of a dozen or so Democrats from red states (except Virginia’s Warner), but they fell one vote short of the number needed to pass legislation authorizing the construction of the Keystone Pipeline from Alberta, Canada south through Nebraska and other Plains states to Houston, Tx.

Good. It’s a short-term victory because the Republicans will undoubtedly bring it back up for passage once they take over the Senate in January, but now the Democrats know who the backers of this thing are in their own party and can start working on them. Some are hopeless, like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who’s never met a fossil fuel company owner he doesn’t want to glad-hand, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who’s essentially an oil sheik by virtue of her state’s sudden boom in oil drilling, but there are a half-a-dozen more from the West.

When the vote comes again the question will be whether the pipeline’s backers can get 67 votes to override President Obama’s veto, if that’s what he decides to do. Nobody knows what that will be yet.