Over at OpenLeft, Matt looks at our Road to 60 program and misses a couple larger points, both about the Senate and Democrats' 50-state strategy.

Looking at Democratic power in the Senate, Matt oversimplifies:

While sometimes brute force does rule, and yes there is some validity to getting to 60, it is not the dominant determinant of what kinds of legislation passes.
...
...the networks within the Senate are not party caucuses but ideological in nature.  The progressives have a small number of dedicated stalwarts, sometimes only one, and that makes retribution easy.  The far right-wing have a larger number, but the center-right clump within both parties routinely works within itself and builds constant power.  They have by far the most power in the body, not because they are Republicans or Democrats but because they have the largest set of interconnected nodes.

Certainly, nodes of power exist and individual Senators lead on certainly things - ideological issues like civil liberties or state and region-based issues like ethanol, for example.

But the power of the minority in the Senate is fundamental - the 60 vote threshold is the underlying mechanism behind the Constitutional intent of the Senate to provide a check on the House.

And our baseline number, i.e. how many Senators we have in our party caucus, matters profoundly for more organizational matters. For example, the organizing resolution passed at the beginning of each Congress sets control of the Senate. And party affiliation dominates - when Democrats won back the Senate in '06, all the committee chairs switched from Republican to Democrat.

When Stoller lists lopsided 75-24 votes like the Iraq war authorization as proof that having 60 in our caucus doesn't matter, he's ignoring all the other issues that Republicans continue to filibuster with at least 41 votes. Here's just two big examples:

The Senate Failed to Invoke Cloture on the Employee Free Choice Bill. Motion to invoke cloture (thus limiting debate) on the Reid, D-Nev., motion to proceed to the bill that would allow union organizers to bypass secret-ballot elections if they can gather a majority of eligible employees' signatures on a petition in support of union formation. Motion rejected 51-48: R 1-48; D 48-0; I 2-0. [Senate Vote #227, HR 800, 6/26/07]

The Senate Failed to Invoke Cloture on the Prescription Drug Bill. Motion to invoke cloture (thus limiting debate) on the motion to proceed to the bill that would allow the Health and Human Services Department to negotiate with drug companies the prices of drugs covered under the Medicare Part D prescription drug program. Motion rejected 55-42: R 6-41; D 47-1; I 2-0. [Senate Vote #132, S 3, 4/18/07]

Back in 2006 to early 2007, I had the privilege to work for Harry Reid in his Capitol leadership office. And I learned the two prevailing rules of the Senate: everything's a negotiation, and 60's the magic number. So the more Senators you have with you on any given issue, the more powerful a hand you have to play. And progress changes conventional wisdom, and moves more votes.

In July of '06, Russ Feingold announced that he was tying Iraq war funding to a timetable for withdrawal. John Kerry signed on. The most votes they got that year, before the midterm, was 13. But with months of negotiation and work to beat back the bogus "funding for our troops" meme, Feingold got to 29 votes in May of '07, a majority of Dems in the Senate.  And many of those votes came from the Democratic Senators elected in the '06 midterm, even if most of them were not as openly against the war as Feingold. There were simply more Dems to work with.

But our Road to 60 ActBlue Senate list isn't just about Senate tactics, it's also about broader political strategy.

In the introduction post, I wrote:

This campaign also reward Democratic challengers who not only understand that we need to challenge everywhere but are actually stepping up to do it, even in the reddest of states and districts. We need to encourage challengers to stand up, especially those that can't self-fund, and that's what our Road to 60 list will strive to do.

Dean (and now Obama's) 50-state strategy is smart because it uses our resources to challenge Republicans everywhere. You cannot win if you do not play.

So we don't think the ideas of "more" and "better" Democrats are mutually exclusive. This year, we can do both at once. As we strive for the Senate's magic number of 60, we're testing the resources of Republicans, and competing in places long written off as safely Republican. So pitch some coin to the list, and help break down the Republican Senate firewall.