When you are holding a bad hand, it's hard to keep raising the bet

I'm going to say things here that a lot of DUers are not going to be happy with. But, we are the ones who like to say that we are fact based.

I was taught at a very early age that the most important thing in politics is being able to count. Math is more important than philosophy in order to accomplish your goal.

We don't have the votes, so we don't have the cards. It's just that simple. Our Democracy is not a Parliamentary system which lends itself to compromise. No, our system has evolved into a "winner take all" system. The party with a slim 51 to 49 majority in the Senate controls everything. They are the majority in each committee, and they hold the Chairs. We may find an occasional Republican Senator to agree with us on a single issue, but that doesn't change the dominance of the majority. We can't even get the issue to the floor for debate and a vote. The only slim leverage the minority has is the 60 vote filibuster rule, but that can be changed on a whim, as it was with Gorsach, the Obamacare repeal and the tax scam.

And, as bad as it is in the Senate, it's worse in the House. The committees, the chairs, the control of the body all rests with the Speaker, who is chosen by the majority. We can have bills that have overwhelming support from both sides, that can't even make the floor for debate or a vote. You can have 190 Democrats and 60 Republicans in favor of certain legislation, but never get a vote.

And then, the electoral college. We have a national election and the Democrats win the largest share of the electorate four out of the last five elections, including the most recent, and we don't have any say at all in the executive branch.

So, before we start blaming Democrats in the Senate for compromising, it's up to us, as voters and activists, to give our party some cards to play. If our only leverage is to shut down the government to win an argument, we'll be digging our hole deeper.

So, it's simple math. I don't care if the final candidate for any office has two heads, we need to vote for the Democrat. I know that the Democrat in Missouri, Alabama and West Virginia is not going to sound like the Democrats from Massachusetts, Vermont or California. This is not the time to hold Democrats feet to the fire, or ask them to raise with a pair of deuces, while the guy on the other side of the table has a full house. No, this is not the time. I know that there are real issues that are hurting real people, but that hurt is going to be worse and last longer if we don't turn the tables so our side has the full house and their side has the two deuces.

We need at least 51 Senators, 218 congressmen and 270 electoral votes in each of the upcoming election cycles. When that happens, that's when we can hold our side's feet to the fire. Until then, anything that causes Democrats to lose votes or reduces our chances to reach the numbers that I've described, makes matters worse for the very people we are trying to help.