Stevens loss not tragic, but a super majority in the Senate it

There are mixed blessings in the news that Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, lost his race for a return to Washington, D.C. The longest serving Republican senator is gone. And that's not a bad thing considering his recent conviction. Party affiliation does not matter when it comes to corruption.

The most obvious blessing from the announcement that Stevens lost the race to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, is a corrupt lawmaker is not returning to Washington, a city rife with corruption.

But there is a downside to this - the Democrats are one step closer to having a super majority (60 seats) in the Senate. If the Democrats achieve that magic number, then that body will be filibuster proof - and that's not a good thing for this country.

On Wednesday Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Independent who was the Democrats pick for vice president in 2004, is returning to his Democratic roots (most likely to retain his committee positions) despite being seen with GOP presidential candidate John McCain throughout the campaign.

With two other Senate races in doubt, one in Minnesota and one in Georgia, it's possible the GOP will be left out of decision making in Washington, despite promises by the Obama transition team stating otherwise. But the Democrats could easily show pettiness. If that happens there's nothing Republicans can do about it.

A filibuster proof Senate renders the Republican Party to less than an effective political party on the national scene. The GOP will be reduced to an impotent opposition party.

Of course many of the things the Republicans will wail and gnash their teeth about under an Obama administration are precisely the things that were accomplished under the Bush presidency. The fear of the Democratic authorized path to socialism has already been laid by the Republican establishment. As the great George Will put it:

while Republicans -- whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965

Which again shows that the GOP needs to return to its roots. The party must reinvent itself to become viable in future national elections. That reinvention must begin at the grass roots level all across this nation.

Kicking out the corrupt, like Stevens, is a start.