Someone please answer this question...

[ClusterFreak]

As a Canadian, I admit I do not understand all the intricate ins and outs of your electoral process, and perhaps the one thing that baffles me the most is this:

Why is it that Obama's agenda is imperiled by anything short of a 60 vote senate majority, yet Bush's (or any Rethug president for that matter) was not threatened in the least when Dick Cheney was called upon to cast the deciding 51st vote?

Dems need 60....but repukes only need 50 really, cuz they have Uncle Dick ready at a moment's notice to emerge from his undisclosed location to break the deadlock.

I swear, I do not recall ever once hearing any kind of brou ha ha from the MSM or from anyone else about Bush having to make do to push his agenda through when it was a 50-50 split until the 2002 midterms. And then after that the 'pukes only won 51 and 55 seats before ceding control to the Dems in 2006.

Someone pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase...explain this to me?:wtf: :argh: :hurts:

[WeDidIt]

1. Because Democrats chose not to use the filibuster option on EVERYTHING.

They would vote in favor of cloture and against the bill.

The Republicans choose to filibuster EVERYTHING.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. If you can reliably count on 6-8 conservative Democrats to vote with you...

...you don't need 60 Republican votes to get stuff through the Senate, you need 50 or so. So Bush didn't need 60 Republican votes.

If you can't count on any Republican votes to vote with you, 60 Democratic votes is the minimum required to pass anything remotely controversial, things that doesn't fall under the arcane special rules for budget votes.

The Bush/Lott/Hastert parliamentary majority was a D-R coalition. Surely Canadians know all about those.

[ClusterFreak]

7. The ConservaDems....right.

That does make sense. You can expect a half dozen or so of those every Senate election, whereas how many so-called "moderate" Repukes....what...one, two? That makes a LOT of sense. Thanks.

[Uncle Joe]

3. It's because corporations own the Republican Party, whereas they dominate the Democratic Party.

If the American People owned the Democratic Party and dominated the Republican Party, the Democratic Party would only need 51 votes.

Thanks for the thread, ClusterFreak.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Because Most Elected Democrats Lie, Lie Lie?

All of the sudden we are hearing that we only need 51. SURPRISE!!!

(This is why Coakley's in trouble - we're sick of this BS.)

[elocs]

10. You only need 51 if you first can get 60 for cloture and cut off debate.

Republicans know how to use rules and procedures to their benefit while Democrats simply seem to be feckless.

[Uncle Joe]

11. I believe their fecklessness is magnified by the dynamics I cited on post #3. n/t

[KittyWampus]

5. The Democratic SuperMajority is pretty much in name only. Too many conservative Democrats

and party leadership that refuses to play hardball.

[FarCenter]

6. Because the gutless wonders in the leadership don't actually force the Republicans to filibuster.

[rateyes]

8. It's because we have about 7 who call themselves Democrats, but

really are not Democrats.

[notesdev]

9. It's not

the 60-vote thing is a political charade for the rubes. Our system works on majority vote for almost all issues.