The most progressive legislation you will see will be no more progressive than Ben Nelson

[WeDidIt]

That's cold hard reality.

Ben Nelson is probably the most conservative member of the Democratic Caucus. Because 60 votes are required for cloture, if you don't have Ben's vote you have to go for a Republican's vote.

So Ben Nelson is currently the barometer on how progressive any legislation that will come out of our current Congress can be.

Now, let's say we lose one seat in November. That leaves 59 members of the Democratic Caucus. Now, you can have no more progressive legislation than the most progressive member of the Republican Caucus.

But, let's say we add three seats to the Democratic Caucus in November. Now things have opened up and there's a lot more breathing room. There's a lot more movement area and you'll not have en Nelson driving legislation to the right. In fact, you'll be driving Ben Nelson himself to the left or else he gets left out of the big wins.

So face reality. The most progressive bill we were going to get for HCR is just as progressive as Ben Nelson, and I think everybody can agree, the state of the Senate Bill reflects that statement very well.

[Mike Nelson]

1. How

very unfortunate

[WeDidIt]

3. YEs, but 2010 gives many openings for more progressive Senators

OH, MO, FL, PA, even IN are all possible progressive wins.

[OHdem10]

2. There is something wrong when ONE Member can overrule the

entire body.

THE TYRANNY of the MINORITY.

[WeDidIt]

6. Put just one more progressive into that caucus

and that one member will have to move left. He'll have no choice.

Put in three, well, it increases that movement to the left exponentially.

[avaistheone1]

4. True.

[treestar]

5. I have learned from this a lot about the Senate

It favors conservatism.

Anyone who wants nothing passed has the upper hand over whoever does want a law passed.

And getting Nebraska to be more progressive would be tough. Along with those other states sending Blue Dogs.

[WeDidIt]

7. Oh absolutely. The Senate is the more conservative body BY DESIGN.

The idea was to allow change to occur very slowly, or conservatively if you will.

[treestar]

8. The disappointed just aren't learning that lesson

And so your OP is a good point.

[WeDidIt]

9. It's been a good civics lesson

I learned this shit more than thrity years ago.

Too bad they stopped teaching Civics.

[dhpgetsit]

10. Senate rules should be changed.

Fillibuster should be much more difficult. They should either do away with it altogether, or at least make it like the old days where they had to stand and speak for hours and hours.

[WeDidIt]

11. I'd rather not see the filibuster go away

But I could see tightening up the rules to make it a bit tougher. Basically, force the group filibustering to show they mean business by requiring a 36 hour nonstop debate session in order to force rule 22 to go into effect.

[bfarq]

18. If the Democratic Senators had Democratic principles, they would

not let the rules stand in their way. The rules were never a problem form the Republicans, even when they had only 51 or 52.

*IF* the Democrats actually believed in any principles, they would be playing hardball with their own and with the Republicans. I don't need to explain how that can be done. There are plenty of recent examples from the other side.

The fact that they don't do this leaves only two possibilities:

1) the people on our side are completely stupid to figure it out or too cowardly to take a stand,; or

2) they don't actually believe in the principles that most of them give lip service to.

I don't think there are too many dummies in the Senate, so that pretty much leaves us only option 2.

What is the point of electing Democrats when they vote like Republicans? As Cenk says, we aren't doing anybody any favors by quietly falling into line as they adopt essentially the Republican plan. It is amazing to me how well the Republicans played their hand. They got their members to buy into the concept that if they could force Obama to get 60 votes without any Republicans, they could use Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieux and several others to gut the plan and make it a corporate giveaway.

Not only does that please their corporate overlords, but it is bound to be a fiscal and policy disaster. By having no GOP fingerprints on this, they are poised to use this as Exhibit A for why voters should throw the Dems out in the next 4 election cycles. This is playing straight into their hands. They probably can't believe their good fortune, especially when they look at the fact that most benefits don't appear until after the next two elections.

This is one for the political science textbooks. We have all been had.

[madfloridian]

12. That's too bad.

There will be consequences for that someday.

[freddie mertz]

13. I agree about adding seats. But am not ready to give up until reconciliation is over.

Call me stubborn.

[WeDidIt]

14. Don't give up.

Ben Nelson could move a bit to the left.

Anything's possible.

[freddie mertz]

16. Right. We will never know unless we try. nt.

[MadHound]

15. You're working off of the assumption that a filibuster is a bad thing

It isn't, even when used by your opponents. In passing the Civil Rights bill, there was a seventeen day filibuster, and all it did is show up the opponents of the bill for the racists and obstructionists that they are.

The problem about filibusters is that it requires the party breaking the filibuster to fight, to get out on the bully pulpits all over the country, show a spine, and show up the filibusters for the obstructionists that they are. This is a good thing actually, you get to beat your opponent over the head with the filibuster.

But apparently the Dems don't want to fight, they've lost their spine long ago. Thus we're consigned to the tender mercies of Nelson, et. al.

[WeDidIt]

17. I don't think it's a bad thing.

But breaking a filibuster requires 60 votes, and that's the margin of the Democratic Caucus, so the more conservative members of the caucus wield more power than the progressives because they can join a filibuster to kill off progressive legislation.

LBJ had 67 members of the Democratic Caucus and faced a similar difficulty because the filibuster required a 2/3 majority to overcome at that time.

FDR had 70 in the Democratic Caucus, but he still ahd difficulties breaking filibusters and keeping the caucus together to progress his agenda.

[MadHound]

20. And yet both of those presidents, along with many others, managed to break filibusters

They did so not by caving in to the least among their number, but by taking the filibuster head on and destroying it, making it toxic for anybody to continue to be associated with the filibuster.

That's fighting, that takes a spine, but that isn't something that modern day Democrats care to engage in. Instead, they cave and cave again, selling us all out due to their lack of a spine.

[WeDidIt]

22. You really need to read history

Social Security sucked when it was first passed.

So did Medicare.

Both used compromise and watered down the original legislation to break the filibuster.

They did it EXACTLY the same way Obama did it.

[RainDog]

19. but Rahm needs to stop funding the fucktard dinos in elections

and put money behind grooming and promoting liberal democrats who can challenge the Ben Nelsons in primary campaigns.

the democrats were WRONG WRONG WRONG to support Lieberman over La Mont. that was a betrayal of the entire democratic base around the nation. and the corporate democrats, including Hillary, were behind Lieberman rather than the democratic candidate.

The truth is that the party has sold out their voters by putting Lieberman back in office.

the LEAST they could do now is strip Lieberman of his appointments and make Nelson a back pasture bullshitter.

Show some integrity and, whether it is done up front or not, put some support behind Feingold and Sanders' attempts to actually do something for the American people, not transnational corporations.

honestly. really. this is the moment of truth for democrats at the party level. they risk alienating their most loyal supporters by not acting in such a way to acknowledge political realities (at the legislative level) while working to strengthen those whose views are in line with majority political thought... and that thought is more liberal than the govt's actions, as has been seen in polls that ask Americans what they want their govt to do in terms of health care v. insurance and pharma profits, etc.

the point, really, is that the middle class is breaking under the weight of 30 years of corporate fucking by both parties. things are changing and it's not 1990 anymore.

[inna]

21. +1.

[bfarq]

25. What, exactly, do you think Emmanuel is?

He's the absolute definition of DINO.

In the past, a lot of the DLCers didn't know WHY they wanted to be DINOs, but they just had a gut feeling that if the Republicans were doing so well for themselves, then they must be onto something. That's essentially how we got the DLCers like Clinton and Bayh.

But over time, they have figured out that there is more to it than just having power. To do it right, you have to ABUSE power, which is to say sell everything you can to the highest price bidders, who coincidentally always end up being the same group of people and corporations.

In the past it might have been accurate to look upon DINOs as somewhat incompetent Democrats who had lost their bearings and principles. Nowadays, I don't think anybody can possibly make that excuse. These people are all cashing in in different ways. With Lieberman and Bayh, their wives get millions a year by sitting on boards of the very companies they are sending trillions to in their various bailout packages. Emmanuel seems to have set up quite a nice gravy train with Freddie Mac.

And the beat goes on.

It is looking more on more like the "change we can believe in" is simply changing the ripoff of America from Republican hands to Democratic ones. Except in the case of Lieberman, who has set it up such that he seems to win either way. I guess it helps to have good friends in AIPAC.

[BeFree]

23. Give Dems A Chance Campaign

Make the senate 100% democratic and make progress happen.

This election make sure you vote for the democratic senator.

Republicans are the party of NO.
Don't let the republicans have another chance to say no. Get rid of 'em.
Round Up the republicans and let democracy grow!

[bvar22]

24. Maybe.

But WHY are there so many "Centrists" at DU calling HCR such a huge VICTORY?

It isn't, as you indirectly acknowledge in your OP.
The Senate basically passed a Republican plan without making the Republican Party assume ANY of the risks.

I also don't agree that there was nothing the Democratic Party Leadership could do to counter Ben Nelson.