About 30 Democrats and roughly as many Republicans remained officially undecided, and the presentation today was aimed at pulling both camps down off the fence.
And finally Senator Robb rose to add his voice to the nays, and the officially undecided Democrats were gone.
Several House races and one Senate race remained officially undecided today.
Six nations - Angola, Guinea, Cameroon, Pakistan, Chile and Mexico - are officially undecided.
The Senate leader, Joseph Bruno, is officially undecided, too, but is expected to go along with his fellow Republican, the governor.
An aide to Mr. Blagojevich said today that the congressman was officially undecided but unlikely to vote for the plan.
"I'm officially undecided on the issue, but I don't believe it merits the attention it's received," Governor Richardson said in an interview.
The White House had him down as a definite censure vote, though he remained officially undecided.
Tanya Furbish, who is thirty-five, was working in a pop-up whiskey station, and was officially undecided about the G.O.P. field.
It is highly unlikely that they changed anyone's mind; barely two dozen lawmakers were officially undecided when the arguing began, and the number of genuine fence-sitters probably was much smaller.