The problem lies in two areas.
1) Democrats are more ideologically diverse than the Republican Party. There are far more Conservative Democrats than Liberal Republicans, and it's because of this that it's harder to keep Democrats in line when it comes to voting on an issue. Republicans are fairly easy to rally because they usually fall in lock-step with one another for the better of the party, as opposed to the Blue Dogs who tend to waffle and waver. This leads to problem...
2) Republicans will filibuster unless Dems can get a large amount of votes in the Senate. If there was no filibuster Democrats would probably ram a much more liberal bill down the House and Senate, but Republicans are forcing the ideologically diverse Dems to not only keep the Moderates/Blue Dogs in line, but also recruit Republicans. (Plus Republicans are trying to delay and fcku up the Minnesota race endlessly to keep an extra vote out.)
On other issues there shouldn't be a problem (unless Republicans decide to filibuster everything like the assholes they are) getting something passed. Like the Fair Pay Act or SCHIP expansion.
Again, I guess I just don't get why the filibuster is so scary. For one thing, they aren't really going to tie up the entire Senate for the next 2 years on this one bill; eventually they'd have to give in and stop filibustering, out of sheer fatigue if nothing else.
And even if they don't, let them be obstructionists and get the blame for going against the stated wishes of the people on the last Election Day. And yes, I held the same view on this 4 years ago, though obviously the Republicans had a much smaller majority both in the Presidential Election and in Congress then, so less of a "mandate" and so should've been expected to be doing more compromising than the Democrats are now.
So, maybe I'm missing something, as to why people just assume the majority party is the one who has to back down when there is a threat of a filibuster. I would assume the logic is that people figure the majority party will be blamed for any failure to "get things done", even if it's caused by the minority party, but I'd think that's not necessarily going to be true.
