Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Friday rolled out a new game plan for passing a highway bill and giving Democrats and the White House the vote they demand to restart the Export-Import Bank, which expired three weeks ago.

McConnell just took to the Senate floor and laid out the plan, explaining that before cloture is invoked on the bill Sunday, there will be votes on two amendments. First, a vote to add Export-Import Bank reauthorization to the highway bill "something nearly every Democrat wants," and a vote to repeal Obamacare "something nearly every Republican wants."

Both amendments would require 60 votes. Ex-Im probably has more than 60 votes. Obamacare repeal certainly doesn't.

This is a slight change from what I reported Thursday, when McConnell was planning to introduce the highway bill as a "perfecting amendment" to the legislative vehicle, HR 22. Instead, McConnell is introducing the highway legislation as "an amendment in the nature of a substitute," thus theoretically opening the amendment process a bit more.