Massachusetts

If I were part of the Democratic leadership, I don't know what I'd do about Martha Coakley's loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat to the teabagger Scott Brown. I don't know if I'd try to ram the Senate healthcare bill through Congress so it doesn't need another Senate vote, or whether I'd scrap the whole thing and start over. Democratic officeholders will be tarred with the bill no matter what happens, so on one hand they may as well go for it. On the other hand, they've done such a crappy job of selling the bill to the general public that they should stop digging the hole that they're in. I don't know.

What I do know is that the Republicans have made the country ungovernable with their obstructionism. There's nothing that the Democrats can do on the major issues facing the nation like global warming, financial regulation, deficit reduction, fiscal stimulus, unemployment, etc., etc. With far smaller majorities, Bush was able to roll the Democrats because he was ruthless and always managed to get a few "conservative" Democrats on his side. It seems unlikely that Obama can get any "liberal" Republicans on his side, mainly because there aren't any. Even Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have maintained party discipline.

I think that Obama should say to hell with bipartisanship and do what he can with executive orders and use of the reconciliation process in Congress. If he's going to be a one-term President anyway, he may as well get something done what he can while he still has some power. Who knows? He might even succeed in creating some change we can believe in.