Eight months later, the final verdict has been rendered on the Bush-Cheney era. Al Franken has defeated Norm Coleman in Minnesota. Democrats have achieved the seemingly impossible: a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate.
Dare to dream.
I’ll leave it to others to explain why 60 seats in the Senate does not mean that Democrats will be able to jam through any and all legislation. (See, for example, Roll Call’s article, “Franken’s Victory Gets Democrats to 60, Sort of.”)
I’d just like to point out that it’s the first time since 1977, when Democrats held 61 seats, that either party has had enough votes to cut off debate and force a vote, a powerful procedural tool.
True, it took a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling and a defection to the Democratic party by Senator Arlen Specter to get there. Nonetheless, in this era of red states and blue states – of Fox News, Conservative talk radio, and hyperpartisanship – hitting this threshold represents about as thorough a repudiation of Republican leadership and policies as one might imagine.
Now, the fun starts.
Before the election, the Wall Street Journal predicted that if the Democrats had 60 seats, the new ”liberal supermajority” would take the country straight off a cliff.
The current financial panic may give today’s left another pretext to return to those heydays of welfare-state liberalism. Americans voting for “change” should know they may get far more than they ever imagined.
Conservative columnist Mona Charen piled on:
In the first place, the Democrats can, with a super-majority, change the rules of the game. They can make the District of Columbia the 51st state with two new senators (guaranteed to be Democrats in perpetuity). They can reinstitute the so-called Fairness Doctrine that required radio stations to provide equal time to all political viewpoints … [which] would kill one of the principal irritants to liberals and Democrats [Conservative talk radio] – to say nothing of disemboweling the First Amendment.
To elect a super-majority of Democrats at a time of economic dislocation is to flirt with depression. Nearly all economists agree that two moves by the Hoover administration deepened and prolonged the panic of 1929 and turned it into the Great Depression. One was raising taxes and the other was imposing protectionist trade policies. Senator Obama proposes to do both of those things.
Now hang on a sec, Mona. While it’s too early to draw any definitive conclusions, aren’t there already indications that the economy may be improving under Obama? And didn’t Obama just yesterday come out against a provision in the historic climate change bill that would impose trade sanctions on countries that don’t accept global warming limits?
” … We’ve seen a significant drop in global trade,” Obama told the New York Times, “I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there.”
It’s sheer paranoia. Hysterical conservative fantasy.
Although … now that you mention it … two more Democratic senators in perpetuity from ”New Columbia”? The elimination of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk?
Hmmmmm.
Welcome to the Senate, Al. Let the voting begin.
Tags: Coleman, D.C. Statehood, Franken
If Mr. Obama sticks to his word, the Fairness Doctrine will never be reinstated.
“As the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com.
I have confidence that Obama will hold true to his campaign promise and veto any such legislation.
I believe the fairness doctrine should be re-instated — just one of many parts of the Reagan Retrogression that need to be undone, and that the only (small d) democratic option is for DC to have statehood.
Just my .02.
Loyal
Well, this super majority in the Senate is after all, a result of the vote of the people. I noticed that Obama won by a hearty majority of electoral as well as popular votes. People were ready for a change. That was what they demanded. And it shows up in the House and Senate elections, too.
Have confidence in the people to correct anything that needs correcting.
The American people did vote for change, but I’m certain that those same people (the vast majority being moderates) will not stand for our government deciding what we can and can’t listen too.
to
For the record, Michael, I’m with you. I was being tongue-in-cheek about eliminating conservative talk radio. I think it would be wrong for Obama to target his political opponents by trying to silence them — and, not only that, it would likely backfire, politically. Thanks for that quote from Ben LaBolt — I take him at his word.
The point I was trying to make, though, was a broader one — about the extremes of the rhetoric (Obama will institute socialism! He will take your guns! He will eliminate conservative talk radio!). That rhetoric has a real impact, in inflaming some section of public sentiment against him.
Having said that, I will say that when I lived in D.C., there was a strong, vocal, committed citizenry determined to get statehood for the District — or at least some form of true representation. I used to love the license plate tag for D.C.: “Taxation Without Representation.” (I remember, George Bush refused to have that license plate, on his DC registered limo.) I wonder, as an aside, if all those conservatives who held “Tea Parties” on tax day to protest Obama’s fiscal policies would go to bat for District residents, who, in fact, face daily the injustice that spawned the original Boston Tea party.
And Larry — for me, Obama’s election did just that; it energized my faith in our system.
Thanks, all, for posting.
-ND
I should note that when Rush says things like he said yesterday — “It’s amazing, the similarities in the Minnesota electoral system and that in Iran” — he’s really undermining his own cause.
Which he has every right to do.
-ND