Sentence:  If the Southerners <WSD>were</WSD> sufficiently aroused , they could very well cut the Kennedy legislative program to ribbons from their vantage point of committee chairmanships , leaving Sam Rayburn leading a truncated , unworkable party . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)