Though now that its a hair away from being a 1 party system, isn't that a bad thing? Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat surely you don't want 1 party to have ultimate power.. thats not how democracy is supposed to work.

America is a Republic. But yes a one party system is deadly.

How is democracy supposed to work?
The people vote but those votes only count if one party doesn't get too many of them?

I'm sure conservatives are crying doom and gloom over this but TBH, it doesn't change much except the speed at which the Dems will be able to do things.
Republicans won't be able to throw as many procedural hurdles in the way to delay things. They already didn't have enough votes to flat out stop things.

With Franken being all but a sure thing from MN, all the dems needed was one defection to get past a filibuster anyways.....and on the biggest issue they'll take up this session, health care, they were going to use the reconciliation process so that a filibuster wouldn't have been possible anyways.

:2 cents:

In a two-party system, don't you find it a little bit odd that a candidate representing a particular party can switch parties just like that? Think of all of the people that voted Republican for him... they basically just got screwed. That's how it becomes less of a "democracy," in my opinion.

People can scream and shout all day long that they vote for individuals and not parties, but I don't believe that for one minute. People vote party line.

He isn't the first or the last to do this, I just find it odd.

First off, it's not really a two party system. We have lots of parties, but only two of them have enough support to consistently elect candidates. The fact that people choose to vote for those two parties consistently is the result of democracy, not the result of some pre-constructed system. (our founding fathers didn't want ANY political parties)

I'm not screaming and shouting at all, but I will say that in Pennsylvania, people voted for the name Specter, and not for the party R.
The other Senator from that state is a Democrat, as is the governor, and Obama carried it by a very healthy margin in November.
So the idea that the people of Pennsylvania are getting screwed just doesn't hold water.

You're right that he's not the first or last to do it either. Because we do vote for people and not for parties, they are allowed to do this. Usually the impact isn't this significant, but still, the people of Pennsylvania voted for Arlen Specter and he gets to use his judgment to decide what's in the best interest of the people of Pennsylvania.

If republicans controlled the Senate 55-45 and he changed parties, it would be a non-newsworthy event outside of Pennsylvania. So it's not really what he did that has people's panties in a bunch, it's the effect it has on the overall makeup of the Senate.

You really don't know much about Obama's platform... it is obvious whenever you post about it... he never even once announced a withdrawal from Afghanistan... he has called for more troops there since the beginning because it is the war we should have been fighting from jump street instead of wasting time and resources in Iraq.

I understand he wants more troops in Afghanistan. Bush wanted war with Iraq and the left was yelling "WHATS YOUR EXIT STRATEGY??!!!" "You cant got to war without an exit strategy!". Where as Obama can place more troops into Afghanistan and the question has yet to be answered.

I agree with you about the need for a clear exit strategy... however, Bush's neglect of the conflict there has left a super mess with the Taliban gaining strategic power in Pakistan now... it's a fucking bomb waiting to explode... literally. I think it's almost impossible to say what the strategy will be until they see some progress.

Thats the response I expected. If he knows enough to add troops he needs to know enough how to "win".

Bwahahahaha,.....I see the nut jobs are now blaming Obama for the war in Afghanistan.

Priceless.

50 Benedict Arlens!

WOWersers