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The Dems may hold enough of the handful of contested seats-- Murray, Sestak, Reid, Bennet, Giannoulias, McAdams, Feingold. But even if they do hold them, they will be saddled with the same Democrat in name only DINO senators who impeded successful Democratic legislation, aiding and abetting Mitch McConnell again and again.
Bluedogs Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Max Baucus will be there, siding with the Republicans on a regular basis, blocking the kind of legislation REAL Democrats pass.
During the time the Whitehouse and the Democrats were working on health care reform, these were the Democrats who opposed public option, let alone, singe payer.
These were the Democrats who blocked Byron Dorgan's bill to allow Americans to buy pharmaceuticals from Canada.
These were the conservatives who blocked legislation that would end tax breaks for companies who outsourced jobs.
These were the DINOs who sided with BP during the gulf disaster.
They will stab real democrats in the back again and again. They will block strong legislation, working with McConnell.
It would not be a great surprise to see some of them, perhaps enough to hand the Republicans a majority, switch party allegiance, particularly Joe Lieberman, who has not political future as an elected official, hence no accountability to the dummies people who elected him.
If a few take the small step of switching parties, it will aggravate gridlock a bit more, but give majority status to Republican committee chairs. That would put, for example, global warming denier James Inhofe back in control of the environmental committee.
Even if they don't switch parties, these pseudo Dems will be able to use the potential switching as a lever to give them greater power than before. Harry Reid was a weak leader before. If he's still around, his ability to get things done will be drastically weakened even further. We may find that he can't hold back the Senate DINOs from supporting legislation that the John Boehner, Republican controlled house puts forward. Reid will have to get into the fillibuster saddle McConnell's team was so comfortable with. I'm betting the Dems will be reluctant to use the 60 count rule as aggressively as the Republicans were.
I hope I'm wrong about the Dem use of the fillibuster. I doubt I'm wrong about the other things.
