Favorite new Democratic Senator?

[AkSaber]

1. Tester

A little tweaking of your post and it matches my answer.

[HappyWarrior]

I like Webb, Cardin,Tester, and McCaskill

[Eraserhead]

Brown and Sanders are by far the best out of that list.

[Boris]

McCaskill and Webb seem to be pretty much useless. 

How exactly would you define 'useless'? Most freshmen senators (and most of the senate) is pretty useless, due that's almost by definition. Assuming that 'useful' within this context means 'left-wing voting record' what difference does it really make? If all 51 Democrats maintained strong left-wing voting records, it still wouldn't matter. All our problems would still exist, and ultimately, their solutions are a little more complex than merely electing progressives into every aspect of the federal government.

[Person Man]

prune-faced resentful 'individualist morality'

"resentful"

I'll accept that charge.  I do resent it.  And so, apparently, does your Number Two favorite senator.

"prune-faced"

Not so sure about that one.  I don't even know what the hell it means.  But I have seen prunes--as a matter of fact I saw three of them today.  my son loves them.  dates too, for that matter--and I'm not quite so wrinkled and not quite so dark as they are. 

"individualist morality"

sure, why not?  That's Lockean.  Actually, I was thinking about individualism vis-a-vis socialism just today.  I had read something about the Tihuantinsuyu, and the Inca.  And I thought about how hard it'd be to have true socialism in any Western society.  Even Cubans and Ukranians and Czechs were never truly socialist.  I'm not sure I can label "individualist morality" as good or bad, but it's part of who we are.  Certainly part of who you are, judging by your posts and rants, so it's a tad paradoxical that you'd knock it.

Ehhh....capitalism or socialism are just words. Niether of them exist outside of the state of nature.

[Ebowed]

If all 51 Democrats maintained strong left-wing voting records, it still wouldn't matter.

Uh... what?  Then the wiretaps, military commissions, etc could never pass.

[Boris]

If all 51 Democrats maintained strong left-wing voting records, it still wouldn't matter.

Uh... what?  Then the wiretaps, military commissions, etc could never pass.

Not really. The wiretap program would still undoubtedly exist (as directed by executive order), with half the senate bitching about its legality but ultimately powerless to stop it. IIRC, the program isn't being re-authorized anyway and is being re-subjected to FISA. Also, the Military Commissions Act was passed in the last congress. It would have been rather nice if we had 51 liberals (or rather, 51 intelligent human beings) in the senate in 2003, of course. Now that would've solved a sh**tload of our foreign policy problems, at least.