Don't Count McConnell Out Yet
McClatchy's saying Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party "will likely rob Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of his strongest tool — the filibuster."
I wouldn't bet the farm on it.
Specter makes the Magic Filibuster-breaking Sixty only if:
- Minnesota's Al Franken is seated before the 2010 elections, which Specter's defection makes significantly less likely;
- Traitor Joe Lieberman fails to realize what a huge opportunity this is for him to peddle his ass back to the repugs, AND
- Specter actually votes with the Democratic caucus on closure votes, instead of trying to have it both ways by supporting repug filibusters.
A technical 60-vote Democratic caucus also assumes that Harry Reid can hold Evan Bayh's Cocksucking Caucus in line, a feat of which he has proven singularly incapable to date.
Specter's defection gives the Blue Dogs the balance of power in the Senate. That is extremely bad news for Democrats and President Obama.
Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....
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2 comments:
Specter's party change is actually a setback for progressive Democrats. If he had stayed Republican and lost his primary, as was likely, we would have stood an excellent chance of electing a TRUE Democrat in Pennsylvania in 2010.
While Specter may have changed parties and has been considered a "moderate", he is still very conservative. Let's not forget how much support he gave Bush's wars. He's a hawk and anti-labor.
We just lost a good chance to elect a progressive.
Governance is the opportunity to compromise. Proper compromises are 'win-win' situations. As much as I tease about Bayh and his Demicrats, They're a whole lot easier to stomach than Republicans.
They present some impediments to a rubber stamp presidency. They force the administration to defend its agenda as it seeks to allocate resources to pursue goals. They bring some competition to the bargaining table. As a Demicrat, myself, I support competition as a means of fine-tuning our message and its reasoning for the allocation of resources.
We have an excellent opportunity here. We can have a 2-party system within the Democratic Party that doesn't have the problems associated with dealing with the Republican Party. Republicans never met a government they liked unless it closed its eyes and opened its purse to make the wealthy wealthier and the middle-class destitute. Whereas, we in the Democratic Party never met a government we didn't like. We trust government to work while they only trust it to collect taxes from the poor and redistribute resources to the wealthy.
We don't need the Republicans to mount a 2-party system.
While I would like a Democratic Senator with more gravitas as a Progressive and less gravitas as a politician, this is a battle we don't need to fight and frees resources for Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio and Kansas. And, yes, Minnesota until the Supreme Court rules against Coleman (which I doubt - given their record).
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