re: #182 Obdicut

Here is what I would do (at least in genearlized terms) if the Dem leadership asked me. I would draft and move a bill through the Senate that does nothing except repeal DADT. I would use my party’s majorities on the committees to move it to the floor without trying to limit the opportunity to offer amendments or doing anything else that the Repubs could claim trampled on the rights of the minority party int he Senate.

I would do all of this with as much publicity as possible, including calling upon my party leader, who also happens to be the commander in chief of the armed forces and the first African-American elected President of the United States, to lead the charge in pushing this as an important piece of civil rights legislation.

And in doing so, I would force the Repubs to choose between morality and immorality, justice and injustice, equality and discrimination. At the same time, I would present the Dems as the party that truly stands and unites behind freedom and equality.

Of course, I would also have done this long ago, rather than a few weeks before an election in which it appears the Dems may lose their large (if not their outright) majorities in one or both houses of Congress, so that my fellow Dems would not be afraid that if they voted for the measure, they would lose the upcoming election.

Had it been done this way, I suspect Susan Collins votes for repeal and the Dems who broke ranks toe the party line instead. Then you have a filibuster proof majority.