Don't be fooled the Republicans absolutely wanted the Dems to side step filibuster.

[grantcart]

In 2014 the Republicans have a slim chance of winning the Senate majority

They have no chance of getting close to 60.

In 2014 there are 20 Democrats up for re-election and 13 Republicans but in 2016 only 10 Democrats are up and 24 Republicans (many from blue states) are up.

So Republicans have zero chance of getting to 60 votes before 2018. They know that they have poisoned the well on bipartisanship and that if they were to get the Senate back and hold the House then they couldn't get anything passed the Senate filibuster.

Therefore the Republicans have been making agreements on the filibuster and then breaking them with the thinnest arguments (the district court doesn't need any more judges) in an effort to provoke the Democrats with a limited nuclear option.

That way if they re take the Senate they would use the same 'nuclear' strategy to completely do away with the filibuster and if they held the House pass hundreds of bills attacking the ACA, Social Security and try and bury the President with poisoned legislation and make him veto until they wear him down.

This is why the Democrats have been reluctant to pull the trigger on the nuclear option.

This is why the Republicans have gone to such outlandish lengths to provoke the Democrats.

With the current poll numbers of the President and the ACA they think that they can get back the Senate and the House.

How bitter will their tears be when the bugs in the ACA are out and millions of Americans get better health care and the poll numbers reverse.

If we take the House and keep the Senate then we should take a page from the obvious strategy of the Republicans and do away with the filibuster and run the table from Public Option, Minimum Wage, Climate Change, Entitlements and the rest of our agenda.

The President, Reid and Pelosi have doubled down on the Republican strategy.

If the Republicans fail to take the Senate and keep the House expect to see a bunch of Republican Senators retire and go into lobbying because they will remain in the minority for years and there is little enjoyment to be stuck without a committee chairmanship or any power when you can sell out and make millions as a lobbyist. If they don't take the Senate this time they will lose it for years into the future.

[mucifer]

1. All I hear on the news is about this being a power grab by the dems.

I hate the news.

[Cha]

5. Don't listen. I hated it in 2002 when I banned it

totally. I hear via DU that it's only gotten exponentially worse.

[Gothmog]

2. Norm Ornstein agrees with your analysis

Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein are two of my favorite authors and really now about the partisanship in Washington. According to Ornstein, McConnell forced Harry Reid's hand on the nuclear option http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/norm-ornstein-republicans-forced-reid-s-hand-on-the-nuclear-option

Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told TPM that Republicans forced Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to "go nuclear" after his Democratic majority took the historic step Thursday and ended the filibuster for executive nominees and non-Supreme Court judicial nominees.

"For whatever reason, the Republicans decided to go nuclear first, with this utterly unnecessary violation of their own agreement and open decision to block the president from filling vacancies for his entire term, no matter how well qualified the nominees," Ornstein told TPM in an email. "It was a set of actions begging for a return nuclear response."

He also speculated that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) secretly wanted Democrats to go nuclear so he could use the same tactic to end the filibuster entirely if and when Republicans take the majority.

"McConnell's threat, it seems to me, makes clear the strategy: let Dems take the first step, and we will then bear no blame when we entirely blow up the Senate's rules after we take all the reins of power," he said. "That other Republicans like Corker, McCain, Alexander, Murkowski and so on, went along, shows how much the radicals and anti-institutionalists now dominate the Republican Party. Which is sad indeed."

I agree that the GOP forced Harry Reid to use the nuclear option and I doubt that the GOP will respect Senate history or rules if they are in control of the Senate

[grantcart]

4. interesting

Both sides are reading the polls with different outcomes.

Republicans believe that they can bash ACA to victory and the Dems see it wearing thin and turning around.

If the Republicans are correct then it will be a very unpleasant couple of years. If the Dems are correct the Republicans will be a severely diminished party and won't have the filibuster to exaggerate their minority status.

[Dawson Leery]

7. +1

[msongs]

3. if dems would give people something worth voting for they would win. repub lite is not it nt

[geek tragedy]

6. Problem for them is that they won't even have a majority in 2016.

They do decently in off-year elections, but get stomped in presidential elections because our base actually turns out then.

They pushed it because they thought they could get away with it.

[randome]

8. After watching politics for the past ten years...

...how could anyone seriously think the GOP has a strategy? They are floundering and they are going down. That's the reality we need to keep in mind. They are at their weakest now.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Cha]

9. I said they were begging for this.. I just thought it was because

how mean spirited they are. They think just because they've got this big GOPropaganda Machine/AKA/US Corporatemedia blaring anti-Dem 24/7 that everything is coming up roses for them in 2014. Boy do we have our GOTV 2014 job cut out for us!

So Harry would have considered all of this when he decided to do it.. and President Obama's on board..

thanks for your analysis, grant~

[Scuba]

10. I seem to recall that a month ago the Republican Party had disintegrated over the shutdown ...

... and now see the same is true of the Dems over a shaky website rollout.

It's a long way to November, 2014. Lots can, and will, happen. And the voting public has a notoriously short memory.

[doc03]

11. If they would take the Senate in 2014 they would change the rules anyway, wouldn't they? n/t

[Dawson Leery]

12. McConnell had made it clear he would eliminate ALL filibusters if the GOP takes the majority.

[doc03]

18. So I don't see any downside for the Democrats doing it if the Rethugs would

if they ever got the chance.

[riderinthestorm]

13. If the Rethugs gain the majority the pressure has to be on exposing their hypocrisy

If they don't automatically reverse the rule back to the way they "say" they want it.

All their blather about how awful this is? Turn it back on them when/if they ever get the majority. Expose their duplicity.

K&R grantcart for an insightful OP but their words today are ammunition when/ if they ever regain the majority.

[magical thyme]

14. this makes the most sense of what I've read...

and I think they're grasping at straws. I expect the ACA rollout glitches to be long forgotten by the '14 elections. Personally, I haven't even attempted to logon. I never rush to things like that because they *always* have bugs to iron out. I'll wait until December at the earliest, and probably not until after I know what my (variable) income was this year to help me project next year's income before I even think of trying to log on. I expect most people are like me...let somebody else rush the doors; by the time I'm logging on the path with be smooth and free of traffic, lol. Plus in January I'll have a lot of indoor time on my hands.

It does really raise the stakes for '14, though. We need to hold the senate and start taking back the house.

[truebluegreen]

15. Republicans didn't need the Democrats to do this for them,

they would have done it themselves as they have already made clear (Bill Frist in '05; and they are way more extreme now). There was never a rule they wouldn't break, change or ignore if it was to their advantage.

It is just as well we changed it in time to do something in the Senate; too bad we didn't do it years ago. But at least changing the appearance of the do-nothing Senate might help us hang onto it.

[quaker bill]

16. It may be worth it either way

There is a chance to substantially remake the judiciary over the next year. These are lifetime appointments, and there are a lot of vacancies. If all he needs is 50+1(Biden), his picks can be a good bit more blue.

This stuff really matters. Almost everything is decided at levels below SCOTUS. If a lawyer, based on experience and the record does not think the judges will be open to hearing a case, the case is dropped. We really do need a rebalancing and time is running short.

[Generic Brad]

17. Republicans have been wrong about everything for around a decade now

I am not fooled by their strategy. It is they who are fooled.