Specter to switch parties

[cinyc]

Well... It looks like we need to get Franken seated ASAP. We have the 60 votes needed, its time to show what democrats can do while in power!  Though honestly cleaning up from the past 8 years will take at least until 2010 or 2011. Any idea on if Specter will move to the left at all because of this (even if only slightly so?).

Ask the New York State Democratic Party about how much they've been doing while in power with their 1-vote State Senate majority.  And since the Democrats control everything, everything is their fault.

[cinyc]

Ask the New York State Democratic Party about how much they've been doing while in power with their 1-vote State Senate majority.  And since the Democrats control everything, everything is their fault.

I really don't think that's the dynamic yet. Everyone recognizes that the Senate Dem majority is dysfunctional because it is no majority at all, and that a larger Dem majority would behave differently. We will see a larger Dem majority before we see Republicans ride backlash into control of the NY Senate again because "everything is bad and the Dems own it." 

Well, no, everyone doesn't recognize that - a majority is a majority.  And that's my point, anyway.  A 1-vote "filibuster-proof" majority is just large enough so that every Democrat can extort his or her own agenda, like what's happening in the NYS Senate.  So nothing ultimately gets done, and what does get done is a bloated joke that is loaded with crap.  Yet the NYS Democrats are in complete control of the government and if NYS Republicans had any political sense, they'd be harping on the Democrat disfunction every day.

Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it.

[cinyc]

Well, no, everyone doesn't recognize that - a majority is a majority.  And that's my point, anyway.  A 1-vote "filibuster-proof" majority is just large enough so that every Democrat can extort his or her own agenda, like what's happening in the NYS Senate.  So nothing ultimately gets done, and what does get done is a bloated joke that is loaded with crap.  Yet the NYS Democrats are in complete control of the government and if NYS Republicans had any political sense, they'd be harping on the Democrat disfunction every day.

We agree about the current state of the NY Senate, sure, I guess we just disagree on where things go from here. The Senate Republicans can not credibly call themselves a force for change as long as they are a gerontocracy that racked up an embarrassing amount of wasteful projects and in-house perks as recently as last November. Anything they call out, Democrats have 30 years of responses to. The Senate Republicans will have to bottom out before they can regroup, much like Texas Democrats. They may then regroup quickly, but it will take more than technical management of the Senate by the other party for one year to do it.

I never said Republicans were gaining control of the NYS Senate - or anything else in this state - any time soon.  This state has gone too far to the Democrats for that realistically to happen.  Well, unless the Democrats do something stupid like elect Paterson in the 2010 primary.

And as Sam Spade points out, the Working Families Party will be the NY Democrats' ruination.  Being owned and operated by the public service employee unions will ultimately bankrupt the state and turn (what's left of) the rest of the population against them.

[cinyc]

Torie, if you knew what the Working Families Party was, you would despise it immensely, knowing you.  

It's basically the political wing of Acorn, owned and operated by the public service employee unions, especially the hospital workers' union.