One of the many lessons to come out of the “Stimulus” battle the past few weeks is that despite their vast majorities, Democrats really do need a few Republicans to jump ship in order to get anything passed. Unfortunately for Republicans, and for the country, the Democrats did find three ship jumpers this time. Without Senators Collins, Snow, and Specter, President Obama would have not been able to sign the most costly bill in American history today. How we as a party should deal with these individuals has already been discussed, on NextGenGop as well other sites. What we should focus on now is our strategy for dealing with the next major spending bill, or other insanely inappropriate bill that makes their way passed the House and onto the Senate floor.

Democrats did not make it to 60 Senate seats for a reason. That would have truly led to one party, unregulated rule that would just be disastrous. Republicans, with their 40 Senators, can block anything they all agree should be blocked. Considering the direction House Democrats are going, there will be ample opportunities for Republicans to use the filibuster power. The question is should we?

Let me clarify that there is a big difference between voting for closure and thus ending a filibuster and actually voting for a bill. My problem with the aforementioned ship jumpers is that once they voted for closure, pretty much guaranteeing the bill would pass, they also chose to vote for the bill, which they didn’t have to do.

Senators can publicly state their opposition to a bill, not filibuster it but still vote against it, thereby letting it pass but still making a principled stance against it. This might make more sense politically on some of President Obama’s economic initiatives. Why? Because if we block all the Democrats plans and the economy continue to get worse we will be the scapegoat, guaranteed.

Some Democrats can’t wait for this to happen. As Representative Eliot Engle (D-NY) has suggested “At some point the president is going to have to tell Senate Republicans, ‘Go out and filibuster this bill, I dare you!’ I mean he’s got all those supporters out in the country, he’s got all his minions, and he needs to enlist them and just let the Republicans filibuster.”

Yes, a Democrat did indeed call Obama supporters minions, but the Congressman has a point. If we filibuster too much, President Obama can tell his supporters he is powerless to do anything as long as Republicans have the numbers to filibuster, meaning the public might be more willing to give him that super majority Democrats are targeting in 2010.

If we, on the other hand, vote against the bills that we don’t agree with but let them pass solely on the votes of Democrats, then they will be given the full blame if and when the economy does not improve. It‘s smarter to be the “hate to say I told you so” party than the scapegoat party.

Granted, there are many issues, like any attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and the card-checking push, where we should filibuster on principle alone, regardless of the political implications. We need to use our filibuster powers wisely. I know I’ve said this many times, but we cannot be the “no” party so whether we chose to filibuster the next Democratic initiative or not, let us make sure we have a better alternative to offer the American people on every issue they bring up.

Last 5 posts by Abel S. Delgado

• Let’s Support the Cantwell-McCain Bill - January 6th, 2010
• Deeds Gets Dirty, Doesn’t Win Anyway - November 2nd, 2009
• Obama & The Berlin Wall - October 25th, 2009
• The Nobel Prom King - October 11th, 2009
• Bureaucratizing Interrogations a Horrible Idea - August 28th, 2009