If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get Out of the... Hey, Where'd They Go?

Welcome to July, which is already the longest month of the year, but signally so for the Republican Party this trip around the sun. This is the hot and grumpy month in which Al Franken will be seated as the junior Senator from Minnesota.

Norm Coleman likely damaged his future chances at holding public office with his puerile struggle against Franken in the eight-month-long recount, but that's the least of the GOP's worries, since Franken's victory gives the Democrats cloture power in the Senate. That means they have enough votes to shut down any filibuster.

Incidentally, this is something that the Rabid Right desperately wished for when it held power, with Bill Frist and Dick Cheney openly pining over the "nucular option". They wanted to change time-honored Senate rules in order to eliminate the filibuster where judicial nominees were concerned - and so would have began their slippery slope:

http://www.hellermountain.com/h_051805.html

The American people gave that gift to the Democrats in response to such an open sewer of arrogance. Still, only a drooling optimist would ever believe that all 58 Donkeys, plus Indies Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders, could ever get on the same side of any issue (especially with Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy in markedly poor health).

Seeing as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is little more than a hand-wringing milktoast, this may not be an advantage for Democrats at all; it puts all the pressure on them to perform. How things have changed in the past 32 months.

In October of 2006, Republicans held solid majorities in both Houses of Congress (and of course had George Dubya in the Oval Office). But they'd been in charge for a good while, and things were going quite poorly, so the voters then took away their seats and by 2008 had buried them in a hole so deep that some describe it as a grave.

A finicky public, therefore, may not be willing to give the Obama administration as long a leash as it wants... Or, at least, that's the last thread of hope to which conservatives might cling. Indeed, this whole mess we call America is the Democratic Party's baby now. All but a few loud malcontents want to see them succeed.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, they now have a recent track record on which they shall be judged, something that was absent in 1994 when they took over the House of Representatives. On many levels, it was their incompetence, corruption and political self-indulgence that got Barack Obama (never mind Al Franken) elected.

In other words, short-term memory alone should prevent much in the way of electoral erosion, as conservatism has been relegated to an ever-shrinking minority. The rest of us, as has been so amply demonstrated, can actually think for ourselves.

pH 7.o1.o9