Just wondering...how many Senate seats would we need for a TRUE majority?

[Ken Burch]

It now seems that even 60 seats isn't enough to get real healthcare reform through. How many more would we need to get to actually get Democratic legislation through the Senate without it being watered-down to nothing(like Baucus's healthcare "proposal")?

[RandomThoughts]

1. It depends on what you mean by 'we' n/t

[spanone]

2. we could have the entire senate and they would come up with a new excuse

[charlie]

3. With this bunch?

About eleventy-thousand.

[dorkulon]

4. Something tells me100 still wouldn't be enough.

We've been conned.

[BlooInBloo]

5. I answered this awhile ago. 112.

[Horse with no Name]

6. Silly

That is a mythical number that we will ALWAYS be short of.

[notesdev]

7. for very odd values of "we"

We don't have 60 seats. Goldman Sachs has at least 97 of them.

[Sebastian Doyle]

8. 51 actual Democrats, including a Majority Leader actually capable of the job

And the Repukes would be powerless.

[timeforpeace]

11. That is the correct answer.

[customerserviceguy]

14. I second that motion

Harry Reid has outlived his usefulness, if he ever had any in the first place.

[rurallib]

17. sadly, who do you replace him with?

[Ken Burch]

18. Why couldn't it be Feingold?

n/t.

[alittlelark]

19. I'd go for Feingold. Boxer would be my 2nd choice.

[robinlynne]

9. I just took a quick look at the composition of the senate finance committee:

There are 2 more dems than repugs. So whatever the dems want, the dems can have. The problem is clearly that half of the dems are rightwing dems who are taking big bucks from the industry. and that Baucus is chairman of the committee. In this particular case, talking about healthcare, the rightwing dems are screwing the people in exactly the same way as the republicans would. In other words, the rightwing dems are giving the majority to the other side because that is where they really belong.

[rucky]

10. You could make this into a poll.

But I don't know if we'd have enough votes.

[Laelth]

12. I'll be happy with 63.

And that's my prediction after the 2010 election. Bookmark it, if you like.

I think we can get single-payer with that. But not until 2011.

:dem:

-Laelth

[mmonk]

13. We don't need seats, we need representation.

[ejpoeta]

15. apparently it doesn't matter how much of a majority we have, we aren't getting

anything because there are a number of dems who aren't on our side.

[Journeyman]

16. Well, when sundry corporations can buy whores in States across the land. . .

and put them up for personal pleasures in Houses great and small throughout DC, what "we" can accomplish becomes somewhat a moot point, given the easy nature of those whose virtues we require.

[David Zephyr]

20. You hit the nail on the head. The 60 seat shit proved worthless, didn't it?

If we don't get the government option, which is already a compromise, I will finally renounce my membership within the Democratic Party where I've been my entire life.

If, after all this shit, we have a 60 majority in the Senate and dominate the entire House of Representatives and have the White House, we can't deliver either single, payer or the government option, then there what in the fuck was all the commotion about.

Excellent question.