What's the Point of 51 Votes?

With Democrats like Ben Nelson, who now says it will take 65 votes to pass health care reform, what's the point of the 51-vote majority? For progressives, achieving our policy goals is like chasing the brass ring in a nightmare...no matter how far we stretch, we're never going to grasp the prize.

Washington Monthly has more...

Historically, legislation that enjoyed say, 57 votes in the Senate, reflected a pretty popular bill. But the political world has not yet come to grips with the unusually small Republican minority, so the expectations are skewed.

And that's what makes Nelson's public comments so foolish. By his logic, health care reform legislation isn't "legitimate" unless some opponents of health care reform vote for it. Nelson is deliberately creating an environment in which the biggest progressive policy achievement in a generation won't be impressive enough, because conservative Republicans didn't like it.