Why is the filibuster a problem? That's a question whose answer should start with the Republicans. I know some want to say that if we were more smashmouth about this, they wouldn't be a problem, so we bash Harry Reid for letting the Filibuster continue, and Obama for not having the political badassery to scare the Republicans out of it. Bring us LBJ or FDR, we say.
I won't argue against the idea that Harry Reid is wrong for continuing to hold on to naive hopes, and let the filibuster reform be delayed. But would it even be an issue without the Republican's deliberate strategical blockade of the Senate? No. It would be a hypothetical point.
Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans are the ones who have made such a response necessary, by abusing the Senate rules. This was a deliberate act on their part. We need to realize that however wimpy Harry Reid has been on the subject, he is, as problems go, a much smaller problem than the Republicans, and Obama smaller still.
The Republicans seem to get treated as a force of nature, as background noise, an environmental factor. The Filibuster has become an unspoken, unwritten addition to the constitution, while nobody was looking.
Whose fault is that?
Theirs. But it's difficult to hold them accountable. Our own folks are closer, easier to beat up. They are the low hanging fruit for our frustrations. Even as we go after them, though, one truth remains: that we're going after these people either for not having the strength or the courage to defeat them, or for helping them do it. Either way, the Republican's actions make their conduct and their loyalties an issue. If the Republicans were not abusing the filibuster, we could handle defections and an unwillingness to abolish the filibuster with considerably more grace. We care about which side of the line they fall on because a rather strong, bright line has been drawn by the Republicans
We end up right back at the beginning, dealing with the same problem.
We should cut to the chase, not bother prioritizing the folks who are marginally responsible for the continuation of the problem. The people we have to defeat, one way or another, are the Republicans who continue this abuse of the filibusters.
My feeling is that until they suffer serious consequences for their obstruction, they'll continue to support it whole-heartedly. What do they have to lose by keeping a stranglehold on our movement's agenda? Until they realize that the answer to that question is "a lot", they won't relent. And I wouldn't even count on their common sense even then. Defeating Republicans may very tell take prying their fingers off of the offices in question themselves.
That, I think, should be the priority, reducing the Republican majority, removing them as obstacles. I'm of a school of thought that treats politics as a deliberate matter. You don't merely vote what you feel, you vote deliberately to get what you want.
What I would encourage Democrats to do is stop focusing simply on aspiring to certain policy, and start figuring out the nuts and bolts of getting what they want, and how to defeat obstacles in our way in an effective manner. It is one thing to talk about what should be, and what we should do. It is quite another to achieve it, and if Daily Kos or other Democratic organizations don't help us figure that out, we need something stronger.