Eh, horseshit. This is all brave talk that means absolutely nothing. The Dems don't have the balls to take this obvious step, and the White House doesn't either. If neither the Senate Dem leadership or President-Elect Obama could summon the backbone and strength of their own convictions to boot Joe Lieberman from the caucus in November of 2008, there is no chance whatsoever that suddenly any of them will find their courage now. And even if by some bizarre miracle they do hold elections, all they'll do is re-elect the current sorry bunch of chairpeople anyhow.

So the right wing Dems lose their power and jump parties. Enough of them do it and the Dems lose the majority, certainly their super-majority. I would love to see such a housecleaning, but don't think the Dems want to chance it.

If this leads to party discipline and they are so sure this plan will be in place for the next Congress, why hasn't it made Chairman Blanche Lincoln more progressive for fear of losing her leadership role?

The senate is a whore house. Different whores have different specialties, and different prices.

But every one of them will do whatever you want, if the price is right.

Party loyalty? Integrity? Patriotism? Don't make me laugh. . .

When are the dems gonna realize that their chief weakness as a party is weakness?

One reason I think the health care bill will get suddenly more popular once it's passed is Americans like leaders. They like people who take charge and act tough.

And Obama is tough. He's had to be to get where he is. He needs to stop with his ideals and get tough on everybody else. Recently he's been showing toughness to the Republicans. Now he's gotta show it to democrats.

Americans hate the gridlock in Washington. They hate it more becuase the Democrats are gridlocked due to weakness.

I'm convinced that it's the appearance of weakness that's turning off the independents more than anything.

Unfortunately, we are seeing Daniel Patrick Moynihan's "Iron Law of Emulation" at work in all this talk about improving Democratic discipline as a counterweight to GOP obstruction.

Moynihan said that any institution, like a political party, will tend over time to resemble those institutions that stand in opposition to them. So, by bringing democracy to a halt with their party-line obstruction in the Senate, Republicans are forcing Democrats to meet fire with fire.

I'm all for Democratic leadership playing hardball with their members if that's what it takes to get anything done in today's polarized climate. We have to be realistic here. But I don't think any of us should be deceived that what we risk is a dangerous concentration of power in a very few hands, and that what's at stake is freedom.

This, in fact, has been the Republican Party's model for governing since the rise to dominance of the Southern reactionary right within the GOP in 1994. Their winning formula has been: win elections narrowly through use of cultural wedge issues to divide the nation in separate warring factions. Then use overwhelming party discipline to both marginalize the opposition and to enforce strict right wing conformity in order to hold the narrow and fragile conservative majority coalition together.

This is not a model that Democrats and liberals want to emulate long term, because it sacrifices so many of the traditional American values of liberty and openness that liberals cherish. But as a necessary and temporary tactic for defeating a minority faction that wants no part of a country it no longer controls, I cannot say I disagree with it.

It is unlikely that the Democrats lose their majority and it wouldn't be a moot point. Republicans manage to be disciplined in the minority. For one thing, being ranking member is worth something. For another majorities don't last forever.

What Ted Frier said. While leadership positions should be based on merit rather than seniority, the problem with the Senate is not a lack of discipline on the Democratic side but too much discipline on the Republican side (and filibuster rules that need to be reformed, of course). I would rather Dems focus on creating wedges between those Repubs who have to be chafing under the "party of no" regime rather than joining the "party discipline" race to the bottom. I don't mean "bipartisanship;" I mean aggressive and creative tactics for cracking the Republican bloc.

The only thing that needs to happen this year is for Dems to push through the keynote pieces of their legislation---the things that'll guarantee a second Obama term---and then sit back with the knowledge that GOPers will never again garner enough votes in either chamber to override a veto.

They have an outside shot at getting a majority in the Senate, and a slim-to-none chance at the House, but they'll never repeal anything.

By 2012, 2014 at the very latest, their "Battle-of-the-Bulge" moment will have collapsed; they'll be in full sunset mode, and we'll finally get to bury the Party of Limbaugh with a stake of holly through its heart.

Let's not forget that the Democratic coalition is more diverse and less ideologically coherent than the GOP senate caucus, hence there is less "party discipline" as well.

Lincoln, Landrieu, Baucus, Lieberman, Nelson, Bayh et al can be annoying at times but there would be no Democratic majority without these "mavericks." So I don't see how a "punish the mavericks" policy could work.

I agree the current system has a real downside, but at least it discourages outright defection. Since 2000 the GOP has lost Jim Jeffords and Arlen Specter (and almost McCain too) mostly because Republican leadership tried to play hardball with its RINO apostates.

MARCU$

I wonder what election of party chairmen will mean for Joe Lieberman?

mlindroo, it seems to me that there is a big difference between rewarding "maverick" and punishing them. Giving them or leaving them in committee chairmanships after they defect on party-line votes rewards them for their defection. It's not the same as actively punishing them for apostasy as the Club for Growth does to Republicans who stray from the party line ideologically.

mlindroo

You are correct that one of the costs of being in the majority in a sharply polarized nation like ours at this moment is that ideological consistency must be sacrificed to achieving a workable governing majority, however fragile or doctrinally inconsistent. What we need to remember, however, is that Republicans look at this Democratic coalition through the lens of their own highly disciplined and ideologicaly rigid base and assume that whenever a bill fails to capture unanimous Democratic support then there must be something nefarious or suspicious about that particular bill.

That is the real cost of Republican filibustering -- raising the bar to 60 votes and essentially turning the Senate into a chamber that can only operate by unanimous consent of what had been a nominal 60 vote Democratic caucus, before Scott Brown.

Under normal politics in a country as big and diverse as this one is, with only two major parties, you expect to lose votes within your own party on almost every issue. That is just the way politics is, and so getting more than 50 votes ought to be enough to be a legitimate reflection of consent of the governed.

By raising the bar to 60 votes means Republicans are now holding Democrats accountable to the same narrow ideological litmus test that they use on their own members.

If the Democrats lose their majority in the Senate this coming election, enforcing party discipline, far from being moot, will become an imperative if they are to regain control and actually govern. If they lose control this election, the major reason will be their inability to govern as a majority during the past three years. And the Republicans' ability to hold onto power is in serious doubt since they will not have, by their own standards, a governing supermajority, and given what has happened over the past year, it will be extremely hard for them to make any valid complaints about obstructionism. And even if the Republicans do get control, they have nothing in their economic agenda that will fly at this point. Anything they can enact without bringing down the wrath of the Tea Baggers will be sure to tank the economy even worse than 2008.

So it is imperative that the Senate Democrats get their collective act together now.

I believe Authoritarianism in combination with caucus rules is at play as to why Republicans are more disciplined than the Democrats. I would like to think that I'm a Democrat because I have an open mind. Even so, Democrats who are leaders and chair committees must adhere to the party line or lose their status.

"Lincoln, Landrieu, Baucus, Lieberman, Nelson, Bayh et al can be annoying at times but there would be no Democratic majority without these "mavericks." So I don't see how a "punish the mavericks" policy could work." - Marcu$

What good is a majority when the mavericks won't vote for the bills that define party ideology? I'de like to know what these people believe that makes them a Democrat. They all look like moderate republicans to me.

To bdop4, they are indeed moderate Republicans, but the Republiscum won't have them, so they are in our tent, not the R tent. This gives us some power, but not nearly as much as we need or would like, and it gives them far more influence than is reasonable.

The road forward is as follows. First, appreciate that having the majority means that the Republicans don't have the majority, so a lot of the nonsense they would have pulled is pre-empted. They don't have the committee chairmanships, they can't set the agenda, and they can't hold investigations everytime Obama wakes up or breathes or sets foot outside the White House.

Second, use the majority we have to do whatever you can to correct past Republican mistakes and make whatever progress is possible with people like Landrieu, Nelson, and Bayh on board.

Third, with that in hand, we campaign like crazy against the Republicans and for Democrats, pointing out how much things would be worse if the R's were in charge. During all this, we look for opportunities to primary out D's who are insufficiently progressive, but only when and where the general election can be won by a democrat. Otherwise we suck it up and live with all the frustrations inherent in being a democrat.

The only solution (until we get a rules change, and probably even then) is more and better democrats, which does not mean shooting into your own side out of frustration, even if the frustration is entirely understandable.

When doubt or frustration prevail, go back to step one.

majun and Rick B are correct. Without more party discipline it won't matter if Dems are in the Senate majority... More party discipline to pass progressive bills that really reform heath care, create jobs, etc will help keep that majority that may otherwise be lost. And, as per Rick, party discipline doesn't mean party ostracism. With no party discipline, Dems have also had Senate and House members switch parties [Go Google].

Were there a yet-stronger Progressive block or more party discipline, better bills could be passed via reconciliation or by breaking the filibuster by the nuclear option--- rather than constantly chase will-o-the-wisp bad-policy compromises with Blue Dog Dems or Republicans.

Imagine where we could be now if that strategy had been used from the get go: An adequate stimulus bill that has unemployment at 8%, headed to 6% and real health care reform that is not that hard to sell as a real improvement. Medicare Part E(everyone) is real easy to understand,sell, and probably gain public approval pdq once passed. Should that really be tougher for Dems to pass than Republicans to pass massive tax breaks for the top 1%?

You think voters have miserable emotional IQ's to not detect wimps, chumps, wusses [pick your favorite term] when they see such repeated behavior. Given such a Hobson's choice, most voters pick strong and wrong over right and weak.

"We're going to elect committee chairs next year," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Looks good, or at least promising, on the surface, doesn't it? Until you realize that the members of the House of Lords... er... the Senate are so used to selling their votes to the outside, they're bound to use the same thing inside. "I'll vote for your chairmanship for committee A, if you vote for mine on committee B".

N. Wells has a point.

How long will Republicans be happy with being a minority?

If we allow Democrats to be conservative in areas where liberals can't win, the Democrats have the agenda until Republicans ALLOW liberal Republicans (moderate New Englanders) to vote the way their constituents want.

Tom DeLay's methods are a trap that destroyed the GOP in 2006. We are suggesting our own suicide by their example.

We hold tight and put up with getting very little done for a few terms.
When a Republican president wins, he's going to have to get SOMETHING done past a Dem majority. We'll see some definite benefits from that.

Hold firm to the right for Democrats to answer to their people and not their party. We'd have no power without that freedom.

It's been less than 3 years since we've had the majority. It's a little early to abandon our principles.

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