Crossposted from The People's View.
The election of 2010 is over. Democrats are still reeling from it, and political strategists are still engaged in "woulda, coulda, shoulda." I'm as disappointed as anyone. But elections are conducted for one purpose and one purpose only: to distribute political power. The measure of a majority is not whether it continues to hold power in the immediate following election, but in how it wields power.
Some things are more important and more lasting than an election. Some things are worth taking a bullet over. Some things are worth fighting for even if the politics of the day tell you not to. Some things are worth losing 60-something seats over. For the sake of country, the fierce urgency of now required the party in power to act with transformational reforms even if it cost them an election.
Health care reform was such a thing, as were the other reforms that are already the legacy of this Congress and President Obama. The Slate's William Saleton makes this point in his article, Pelosi's Triumph
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