Echoing Sen. Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) insistence this afternoon that the public option is not dead, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared on MSNBC's Hardball that the 13-10 vote rejecting his public option amendment to a Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill is a kinda-sorta victory.

"This was really good news for us," he said. "We're clearly not there, but not a single Democrat has said, 'I'm absolutely against the public option.' Chairman Baucus said he likes it but wants to see if it can get 60 votes, and we're feeling that we might get there."

Schumer emphasized that Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee are more conservative than Democrats in the Senate, who are in turn more conservative than House Democrats.

"We said all along we never expected to win in Finance Committee," he said.

The Senator also said health care reform that includes a public option would not be bipartisan.

We're not going to get Republican votes, that's for sure. But more and more Democrats are open to it.

"A month ago people were saying the public option is dead," Schumer said. "They're not saying that anymore."

Schumer kept casting Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) as critical to the public option. "We have to show Max Baucus that we have the votes," Schumer said, adding that progressive ads attacking Baucus for not supporting the public option are "hurting us."

Regardless, Schumer seemed to be trying to claim a moral victory today.

"We lost today," he said. "We said we were gonna lose before the day began. We didn't expect it would be this close."