Obviously we have a problem. Fifty-nine Democrats (no, Joe LIEberman is not a Democrat) is not enough to get things done in the senate. The handful of conservadems that we have in the senate are no better than Republicans and if not for these people, we would surely have a public option by now.
That said, the thing that we really need to all understand is that the HCR shortcomings are NOT a progressive FAIL, they are a conservative FAIL.
It is not the entire group of Democratic senators who are at fault; it is those few senators who are DINOs that have ruined this thing. And, the fact that no Republicans ever cross the aisle anymore means the Democrats now have no margin for error. So, having just one Lincoln or one Lieberman is all it takes to kill any progressive bill.
So, what to do? Well, the one thing we cannot do is withdraw from the fight. That is just what the Republicans want. We all need to remember that EVERY Republican is against anything that would help the average person. This means that rather than shrink from the challenges ahead of us we need to instead double down in the next election and focus our fight on putting more progressives in government. And, we need to focus our donations on specific races rather than the various democratic fundraisers.
Here is the deal. We know who the guilty people are. They are Lincoln, Lieberman, Landrieu, and Nelson (and possibly a few others with lesser degrees of culpability). These four in particular need to be removed. Now, some people may say they are from conservative districts, so all we will get by challenging them is a Republican instead. Well, in my mind, if a senator would be willing to join Republicans to filibuster a bill like HCR that is supported by hundreds of their Democratic colleagues, then they ARE Republicans.
I live in Arkansas. What I really hope is that we have a chance to primary Lincoln out of office and get a real Democrat in that seat. I think that even if we end up with a Republican senator, at least we will be able to field a real Democrat in the next election. While I will not vote for a Republican over Lincoln (if she makes it to the general election), I will not cast a vote for her either. She will have to win this one without me because she is also a Republican.
My point is that it is critical that we work to both keep true progressives in office as well as work to primary out any DINOs (especially these four). We need to focus on congressional races where we can exchange a DINO for a real Democrat and Arkansas has such an opportunity in 2010.
The lesson that we have learned from this HCR farce is that we cannot get real progressive legislation without real progressives. That means we need to gear up for a real fight in 2010 and 2012. If we could just get a couple MORE progressives in the senate rather than a couple less, we might get over the hump.
We have a lot of work to do.