Are Democrats finally getting their act together?

In the dawn of what some see as a coming GOP renaissance, the Democrats, after a tumultuous year, may be seeing a glimmer of hope for their party's prospects in this years midterm elections. The Health care bill may (actually, someday) pass, the jobs bill is moving forward, and financial reform is coming together.

President Obama will apparently be embracing ideas on tort reform and cost control in his new legislation that he will be unveiling sometime tomorrow that will take the "best" ideas from last week's health care summit.

The way forward on health care is not to make it more ambitious, which is a solid strategy the White House is employing. Speaker Pelosi only passed their more liberal version of health care reform with two votes to spare (and that includes one GOP vote that is now dissenting,) so the hope is that a more scaled down bill that costs less and even contains some GOP goodies like medical malpractice reform and major cost control measures will be enough to get 6 or 7 more moderate Democrats who had initially voted no to switch their votes. Measures like tort reform and the ability to purchase insurance plans across state lines have been in the standard Republican talking points for months, and the White House will be daring the GOP to vote against something their party has advocated for nearly 30 years.

Kentucky GOP Senator Jim Bunning, who has long been a thorn in the side of his leadership, made several of his colleagues wince yesterday when he went on a tirade to reporters asking him why he is single handedly blocking a widely popular extension of unemployment benefits, COBRA benefits, medicare reimbursements for physicians, a highway trust fund extension, and many other programs that both parties actually like. Bunning may have unwittingly blunted much of the progress and momentum his party has been enjoying recently, and his actions seem only to be perpetuating the commonly held public view that the Republican Party is needlessly jamming up the government for political gain. Senator Harry Reid could kiss him, although he himself doesn't enjoy a rosy relationship with the press, he has at least never flipped off a reporter in the halls of the US Capitol.