So, for the two of you who have not heard, Senator Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania recently switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. The political ramifications of this is that when (not if, conservatives) Al Franken of Minnesota is officially made the Senator from that state, the body will consist of 60 Democrats and 40 Republicans – thereby giving Democrats the all important filibuster proof majority it needs to push through legislation without having a single Republican vote in favor of any particular measure.

“Hooray!” you may say, “take that, party of no. That’s what you get for screwing up our country so bad that the people have spoken against you. We are in charge now.” And it is true – Democrats are in charge and President Obama can pass whatever legislation he wants without a single Republican vote. As a Democrat, I am thrilled that we may see some progress on certain key fields I am passionate about; I am sure fellow liberals feel the same.

But I want to take this opportunity to warn my fellow Democrats not to go to far with this. Speaking as someone who lives in a one party state, I can honestly say that it is not all it is cracked up to be – especially if you are on the loosing side. The one luxury that Republicans have in Utah compared to Democrats in the nation is that, in Utah, Republicans can loose a number of seats before Democrats will actually be able to be a true force as a minority party; it is doubtful that Republicans will be swept out of massive power in one election cycle.

National Democrats, on the other hand, hold a very tumultuous super-majority. All it will take is one Republican winning in a blue state to screw it all up (Simmons in Connecticut, Castle in Delaware for example). If Democrats don’t keep this in mind and simply railroad things through Congress, the odds of a conservative upswing come Election Day 2010 become more and more likely. The only thing able to prevent the loss of the filibuster-proof majority in the scenario is that the laws passed are actually popular and Obama maintains high approval ratings.

If this doesn’t happen, however, Obama looses the high ground in saying he wants to bring a bipartisan feel to politics and suddenly we are forced to defend the very actions we railed against during the early part of the Bush administration.

In short, my fellow Democrats, be happy that we have the majority, but don’t screw it up. We often forget that our system was designed to have elections often in order to prevent too much power getting in the hands of people – The American people giveith and the American people can takeith away.