Here’s some free political advice for Democrats:

• Democrats don’t need the filibuster in the next Congress; we have the President.  If the Republicans back some unpopular and ill-advised measures, but have enough of a legislative majority to get the bill through Congress but not to override a veto, then Dems should just vote against the measure but let it pass and land on Obama’s desk.   He can veto it.
• A key job of Democrats should be to make Obama’s vetoing task much easier by making a loud and convincing public case against stupid Republican initiatives, of which there will certainly be an abundance.
• There is going to be enormous political pressure within the Republican Party to placate and reward the Tea Party.  But exit polls show only 40% of American support the Tea Party.
• Remember Terry Schiavo.   Republican wingers in power have proven they are perfectly capable of hanging themselves in nooses of their own creation.
• For some reason, Republican rank and filers think it is good politics to be in favor of low taxes on the extremely rich.  It’s not; and it’s especially not going to be good politics in a deficit-cutting environment that the Republicans themselves helped create.
• Democrats need to make sure attempts to bundle spending cuts are exposed to lots and lots of sunshine, and that the precise measures being cut are laid out before the public.   Let the Republicans make the case to their constituents that low taxes on Wall Street robber barons are more important that a job creating rail system, or a school repair program, etc.  We’ll see how that works out.
• Republicans seem to think there are no end to spending boondoggles and pork to be hacked out of the budget.  But once they are forced to identify the things they are cutting, they will find that most of the stimulus enactments are important public investment measures that revenue-hungry states and American workers and businesses digging out of a recession aren’t going to be eager to give up.
• Continue to hammer home the theme that Republicans are a reckless and backward pseudo-populist party that is unprepared to govern responsibly.  To the extent that they step up and try to fill the shoes of governance responsibly, the Republicans will divide themselves, because they have allowed themselves to drift in the direction of proud boneheadedness and extremism.
• Polls show a majority of registered voters actually have a more favorable view of Democrats than Republicans.  Some of those voters wanted to send a message to Dems for failing to deliver a strong recovery, but they will be perfectly ready to turn the Republicans back out in 2012.
• The economy will be turning around by 2012, and Democrats might be able to take credit by pointing to a variety of measures that were passed by the “Do Something Congress” of 2009-10.  They should not allow themselves to be turned into the monkey-wrenching filibuster party, as the Republicans did.   They have the Presidential veto to block the really dumb stuff.
• Don’t let the Catfood Commission austerity nuts kill the recovery.
• Tea Partiers are going to be alienated and frustrated within six months.  The country does not support their program of inquisitions, draconian cuts and rule-by-moron.  They will soon figure out that the people who actually own the country consider the Tea Party to be a bunch of stupid mules that they are in some cases happy to ride up to the Capitol steps, but are now going to sell off to the dogfood factory.
• Just as we saw the Democratic tent come unraveled in the past two years, there are going to be huge rifts in the Republican Party over the next two years as the responsible members of the Party seek to redefine it as a party of grownups capable of governing, and not a mere opposition rabble of idiocratic yahoos.
• Here’s one area of actual legislative progress that can be made during this period of divided government:  Do immigration reform.   Both parties are driven by constituency issues into extreme positions on this issue, and now have some cover to do something because of the divided government.  The key issue is actually stopping illegal immigration, and restoring public confidence in the rule of law, and restoring the sense of control over our own destiny.  The questions of what to do about people already here, and how much *legal* immigration to permit, will be much easier to handle politically once people are confident that the bleeding has been stopped. If you live in a well-sealed house where the water comes in by a system of pipes in good repair, you can talk calmly about how wide to open the faucets.  But if water is still pouring in through the ceiling and walls from ruptured pipes, it is impossible to have that discussion.  Americans just want to have some sense that they are in control of the demographic future of their country, and that the future is their *decision* – not something that just happens *to* them.
• Another issue for constructive legislative progress by Democrats: work on balancing trade with China.  It’s important in itself, and will also expose fissures within the Republican Party as a political benefit.